Ethan St Cloud & the Divine Locket
by worthlesswbu
Summary: Ethan St. Cloud, his twin sister and friends thought they might finally be normal. But like always, that normality has been shattered, because Ethan and his friends have to go to a school for, what were they called...? Demigods? Percy Jackson AU. R&R!
1. Chapter One

**A/N: (Okay. For those of you who have already began reading this story, I welcome you back. I deleted the other chapters and re-uploaded this story because the third chapter was being SO STUPID. So, please understand that you really don't have to read through this again and that the chapters you've read already have been fixed. Anyway…) Welcome, readers! Don't worry. Just because I'm not writing Anthony Jackson, and I'm writing another Greek mythology story does not mean I have completely given up. Anyway, I guess this is a Percy Jackson Alternate Universe story. Note that the characters in Percy Jackson might not show up, but maybe referenced. Also, they don't attend a camp. They will go to a school. The reason it's a Percy Jackson alternate universe is because, first of all, Percy Jackson was the inspiration for my interest in Greek mythology, and I chose to title this to the Percy Jackson section because I thought it would get more views. Anyway, please enjoy!**

**The Ethan St. Cloud Chronicles – Book One**

**Ethan St. Cloud and the Divine Locket**

_Disclaimer: I don't own Greek mythology. In fact, if anyone in this world did, they would be old and mushy. Anyway, enjoy!_

IT'S FUNNY, HOW YOUR LIFE CANchange so quickly, so rapidly.

For instance, when you go to a birthday party, expecting it to be as normal as it could be when weird things go on in your life, and then having to be whisked away to a school for so-called special kids? I mean, seriously.

Let me just make three things clear.

One: Being different isn't a sin.

Two: Your life can change more quickly than you think.

and Three: Be on the lookout in case you're one of us. Recognizing yourself in the pages of these books is bad. You'll be able to know if you're one of us by reading this. If you think you are, make sure you ultimately protect yourself from _them_.

My name is Ethan. Ethan Alexander St. Cloud.

My twin sister and I have been thirteen for a couple of months now, attending Maplewood Middle School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Every school needs the fatherless twins, right? Well, I guess that's me and Ellie.

It was quite interesting; most of my friends, and even some of my enemies, had lived with only half of their parentage. Some of them had no mothers, some of them, vice versa, without any fathers.

Anyway, I was telling you about how quickly my life changed just by attending a birthday party, right? Well, I guess I should get into that.

The birthday party was for my best friend, and Ellie's fatherless boyfriend, Hunter Rivera. They were dating for about five and a half weeks before the party.

As I told you earlier, mostly all of my friends, and some of my enemies, only knew or have only half of their parentage.

The majority of us had no fathers, but some of us had no mothers, such as my girlfriend of four months, Rosa VanCleaven, who goes by Rose, as well as the other final couple of the group, Dmitri Gardner and Olivia Johnson.

The rest of us: Benjamin Rich, Andrea Martin, Melanie Green, Brianna and Hunter Rivera, Ellie and I didn't have fathers.

Brianna is Hunter's little sister. It was pretty obvious they were siblings, too, because they looked incredibly alike, with the same black hair and bright blue eyes their father must've had. They are fully related, but Hunter doesn't have any memory of his father, so she must have been born, at the most, a little over a year after Hunter's birth.

My story begins with me sitting in English class…

I sighed and twiddled with my thumbs as I sat in that desk in English that one day. The past few weeks were a breeze for me since we were learning about Greek mythology. I already knew all of the information. Not only was I reading it ever since I was practically old enough to read, but my mother, Piper St. Cloud, always told Ellie and I the stories when we were younger, and found Greek mythology an important thing for us to learn. I grinned over at my best friend, Hunter Rivera, who was only slightly less bored than I. He smiled and nodded to my desk. I found a slip of paper there. I quickly snatched it and opened it up, even though my English teacher didn't really care if we passed notes. It read:

'It is gonna be my birthday in a couple of weeks. My mom is finally letting me have a birthday party again, after what happened last time… Anyway, do you and Ellie wanna come?' I grinned ear to ear, and slightly chuckled at the whole 'after what happened last time…' thing. The last time he had a birthday party; there was a power outage in his house because of all the lights and electronics being used simultaneously. I scribbled a quick reply.

'I'm sure we'll be able to go! And I doubt that there will be a power outage this time. Do you have the details for the party yet?'

'Sort of. My mom and I are probably going to have it at my house, but we don't know how long the party runs through. My birthday's on a weekend, so it might be a sleepover, but we're not sure. I also think I know who I'm inviting.'

'Who are you thinking of inviting?'

'You and Ellie, of course, Rose, for you (HA), Ben, Melanie, Andrea, Olivia and Dmitri.'

'_Coolio_.' I tossed the note back onto Hunter's desk as the bell rang, signaling us to leave the classroom, and before anyone left, our teacher shouted, to make sure everyone could hear her,

"Don't forget to start your first draft paragraph on the Greek Olympian you were given!" I sighed. I had completely forgotten about the assignment, despite it being only told to us on Monday, when it was Wednesday.

Among the group of our friends, Hunter, Melanie and I were the only ones in the same English class. I was assigned to write a paragraph on Demeter, Melanie has to write about Hera, and Hunter had to write about Ares.

I was glad summer would be soon arriving. Ellie and I often get summer fever several months before school ends. I could almost feel the rest of school fading away from me, finally giving me time away from that torture chamber that Olivia actually _enjoys_.

Again, I had nothing really against school. I knew there were tons of other kids out in the world who wished they had the opportunity to go to school. If I didn't have school, then I'd probably be illiterate, and for all we know, a guy could come to my house with a contract for me to sign that would end up being something I would regret.

Also, most of my social life comes from school. If there wasn't any school, I probably wouldn't have my friends, Ben Rich, Dmitri Gardner, Melanie Green, Hunter Rivera, and Andrea Martin. I probably wouldn't even be dating Rosa.

Rosa's father, Miguel VanCleaven, is a famous actor that everybody in school knew. A lot of people in school were all over her because of that. All of the guys seemed to want to date her, while the girls tried getting her associated with their group to gain popularity or something like that. Maybe they wanted to be actors and actresses or something.

As for me, I don't date Rosa for who her father is; all of us were friends with Rosa before we figured out her father was a famous actor. Ever since all of us kids in the middle school began to have comprehension of popularity and fame, everyone suddenly thought that they were Rosa's best friend.

Alas, Rosa promised us that she wouldn't leave us for the popular people, which made us happy, especially with people we hated in school. The thing is; Rosa and her father were almost complete opposites: her father was a famous actor that everyone paid attention to. Rosa didn't want to be an actress; in fact, she didn't like drawing any type of people who want her to become popular or attention to herself, which resulted in us having to move our original lunch table to the back of the cafeteria, having to sit in the farthest corners in the classroom, et cetera.

What I found interesting was that Rosa wasn't of any type of Spanish descent. Apparently, her father liked Spanish names, as did his mother and grandfather before, so he decided to give her the name Rosa. However, Rosa doesn't like the name though; however, she does like the English equivalent, Rose, and so she makes us call her by that name. Though I like the name Rosa, so whenever I'm not with her, I call her by that name.

If there's anybody within our group that I feel bad for most, it's Ben. Not only did he have to live life without his father, but when he was seven, his mother was driven insane with the fear of death. Her name was Valeria Rich, and she was a waitress at a restaurant near our school called _The 99 Restaurant._

Ben lives with his step-father. Luckily, he isn't one of the step-fathers that hurts or abuses their new wife's kid. His step-father, Professor Drake Morris, loved Ben and treated him with care, though I'm not exactly sure if Ben feels the same way about him. Ben doesn't actually call him anything but the name, Drake. He doesn't call him father. He doesn't call him step-father. He would only call him by the name Drake.

The only thing that really keeps Ben in a mood that _isn't_ gloomy is his friends, or Andrea, whom he is dating.

Rosa was the one that actually set them up together. She thought they both were feeling lonely, since Ben isn't always in a happy mood, and Andrea felt like no boys actually liked her. Turns out, they both really liked each other, and one thing that tied them together deeply was the fact that they were both mischievous and had a lot of things in common.

I'm sure I've been boring you for a long amount of time now, so I guess I should better get into the story now.

Ellie and I stepped out of my mother's van and walked up the steps to Hunter's house. We didn't really know what to get him for a present, and not many kids our age really wanted any presents for a birthday party, so we each have a card with twenty dollars for him.

I knocked on the door. No soon after did Hunter open the door. I recognized some of the faces of those who had already arrived─Olivia, Benjamin, Dmitri.

Out of our entire group, Olivia was definitely the smartest. She had grey eyes, with lush, black hair, which she never really bothered to brush or straighten unless on a special occasion: I guess she considered this a special occasion, since her hair was actually combed.

Ben was sort of anti-social. He had dark hair and dark eyes, with pale skin and lots of freckles, and even though he wasn't exactly gothic, he was automatically labeled as exactly that in our school, and even though we've tried convincing them in the past, they should know by now that he's just loud when around us and isn't exactly comfortable around strangers. People always think he's an antisocial Goth.

Dmitri was a true-tree-hugger. He recycles everything considered "recyclable", and pretty much lives off of: fruits, vegetables, organic food and wheat pasta. He has dark hair and eyes like Ben, but olive colored skin with no freckles.

Ellie and I entered, and Hunter said we could put our cards on the dining room table. He kissed Ellie on the cheek before she followed me. I giggled. We had been to Hunter's house in the past, so luckily we knew where we were going. I looked at Ellie right after we put our cards on the dining room table, and she was blushing. I laughed, and she punched me in the gut.

Anyway, after that was over with, I noticed some more people were beginning to arrive, even though I couldn't hear their cars outside or their knocking on the door of Hunter's house. Hunter opened the door to reveal Rosa and Melanie, the two best friends who car-pooled together. Brianna quickly ran over to them and hugged them, which made them giggle. Despite being a year younger than us, Brianna was still a great friend of ours.

Rosa walked over to me and hugged me, which made a people make the "Awww," sound that sounds like their cooing over a newborn baby.

I could tell Rosa had at least _tried_ to look good for the party.

Not that she was ugly or anything. In fact, she was quite pretty. But with the fact that some people try becoming her friend just to be somewhat popular or something like that, she tries not looking like she could be a child actress and pursue her father's career.

Her chocolate brown hair was straightened, and I could tell she was wearing contacts today, because her eyes weren't changing color like they usually do. Typically they change from blue, to green, to brown, to even hazel or grey, but one day, somebody commented that they thought something was wrong with her eyes because it was a mix of colors to make an ugly shade of brown, and she's been wearing contacts frequently since.

Rosa didn't care much about her looks. She wasn't the type of girl you'd expect to be. Her father is almost a multimillionaire, and her house is practically a mansion. With her father being an actor and having gorgeous features, you'd think she was the kind of girl who cares nothing about her friends and breaks school dress code by wearing spaghetti straps and short shorts─but _never_, would Rosa go there.

Andrea was the last to show up, which surprised me, because she told me she walked here, and Andrea was a pretty fast runner─walker, whatever.

"Sorry I'm late," Andrea apologized.

"It's okay," Hunter told her. "It was only, like, ten minutes. It's not like an hour." She giggled, and Hunter and Brianna's mom, Michelle Rivera, walked into the living room where all of us were standing.

"Okay, time to go outside." She told us. Some people groaned, not liking the hot weather of today, but I didn't mind it.

We walked outside to Hunter's backyard, which had beautiful lime green grass with a large wooden deck with a tomato garden. There was a tire swing and a small playground off in the distance.

All of us sat at a table in which we sat and talked, with food and drinks being prepared for us. Hunter's mother was cooking cheeseburgers and hot dogs for us, and the smoke coming from the grille gave off a fantastic smell, that I loved.

Andrea began telling us a story about how she was able to steal earrings from a store at the local jewelry store. Of all of us, Andrea was the most mischievous, the most rebellious. She sometimes tried convincing us to do stuff like her, and even Ellie and Melanie had a past of doing bad stuff like that─the difference was, Andrea could get away with it.

Andrea, having told us that she was wearing the earrings at the moment, tucked her dirty blonde hair behind her ear, revealing a cartilage piercing.

"It really brings out your eyes," Brianna noticed randomly. We all burst out in laughter due to her randomness; even though I did see that the emerald green earring really _was_ making her brown eyes _pop_.

While some people stayed at the table, Rosa, Melanie, Ellie, Hunter and I walked over to the tire swing and deciding to swing in it since we were bored with nothing much to do.

When we were younger, we would always find stuff to do at parties, and it would be incredibly fun, and at that age, we never thought we would actually grow up to go to parties and just walk around and talk. Well that's what we basically did now that we were thirteen, some of us twelve.

Dmitri just seemed sort of in his own world, lying down in the grass and looking up at the aquamarine sky with its clouds like cotton balls. He was the only person in our group who was the extreme protector of nature and loved eating naturally grown food like fruits and vegetables.

Before long, Hunter's mother called us back over to the table. I was a bit afraid to eat, because the last time I was here, I didn't exactly enjoy her tacos. The smell of her cooking always lured me into eating it though, so I tried it this time.

To my surprise, the food actually tasted good. Hunter and Brianna's mother had _definitely _improved since the last time I ate here, which wasn't too long ago.

After being told that it was time to come inside, the rest of us sat in the living room, while Brianna, Hunter and their mom cleaned up a bit outside. Luckily we hadn't made too much of a mess. Several times you could see them coming in and outside, dumping plastic plates into the trash can.

It was only the moment their mother came inside to throw a plate away, that the so-far amazing day shattered and turned into a nightmare when we heard a faint lion's growl, and the terrified screams of Hunter and Brianna Rivera.

All of us quickly ran outside. There were no signs of jungle cats or lions, but we saw Hunter and Brianna sprawled out in the woods. As fast as humanly possible, we ran over to them. At first, there appeared to be no injuries. We knew they weren't dead, because their chests were moving up and down, and there wasn't blood everywhere. Hunter rolled over. I noticed several scratches on his arm.

"It─it hurts. My arm, it hurts. Lion… spikes and…"

"It's okay," I assured Hunter. Rosa, Melanie and Andrea were already at Brianna's side, helping her with the pain. I helped Hunter sit up. All of quickly rushed the Rivera siblings inside to give them bandages and help heal their wounds. Before his mother sprayed some stuff on his arms to ease the pain, Hunter quickly asked

"Will it hurt?" She laughed.

"It might sting, but it won't hurt that much." She started to spray.

"Wimp," Brianna mumbled. He gave her a glare like _I'm going to kill you later._

I was worried about what Hunter said. The words kept repeating in my mind, as if trying to tell me something important: _Lion… spikes and…_ What had he been talking about? What lion? What spikes?

"Tell us what you guys saw," Dmitri demanded of Hunter and Brianna. They looked at each other, the nodded slowly.

"Well," they both suddenly said in unison. They quickly glared at each other.

"Am I telling the story or you?" Brianna asked. Hunter lifted his shoulders in a: _I don't know_ gesture. She sighed.

"I─I don't know what it was. It was─it was, this lion thing. And… the spikes… such… such painful spikes." Brianna suddenly collapsed on the couch in a sleep deprived manner, and Hunter did the same.

Their mother looked at them wide-eyed as if she were looking at Death itself.

I wasn't exactly sure if I should be thinking of the same thing as her or not.

**A/N: Love it? Hate it? Tell me! Do you think I'm copying Percy Jackson a bit too much?**

**ANSWER THESE CHAPTER ONE QUESTIONS!:**

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**THANK YOU FOR READING & PLEASE REVIEW!**


	2. Chapter Two

**A/N: Hello, my fellow readers! Thank you for waiting for an update. Luckily, I updated rather quickly, don't you think? Well, anyway, I have to get a few things out before you read the story. First of all, you **_**must**_** remember, this is a Percy Jackson AU. This means this doesn't involve a Camp Half Blood or anything like that. The mist is different than that in the Percy Jackson series. The gods aren't always awake, that sort of thing. A lot of things are revealed in this chapter, and prepare for a cliffhanger in the end! MWAHAHAHA! Eh hem, anyway, I would also like to say, that I forgot to edit something from the last chapter: This story takes place in HALIFAX, Massachusetts. Not Boston. I forgot to change that, and that's bad because you don't normally here of actual, literal houses in Boston anyway. So pretend they've been living in Halifax all this time. Anyway, I guess that's it for now, so enjoy!**

**The Ethan St. Cloud Chronicles – Book One**

**Ethan St. Cloud and the Divine Locket: Chapter Two**

_Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Percy Jackson _or_ Greek mythology in any way, shape, form or fashion. It's sad, but true. _

SEVERAL DAYS HAD PASSED SINCE Hunter's party. Both he and Brianna's pain had finally dissolved, and I felt bad for them. I was confused by their story, and on top of the pain, it must've been frustrating to them.

Luckily, I had already written my essay on the Olympian goddess Demeter, because I wasn't able to think straight ever since the party, what with me worrying and what not.

I noticed I wasn't the only one who's been acting weird since the party. Both Hunter and Brianna kept telling me that they would wake up in a cold sweat after waking from terrifying dreams about lions with spikes for tails

What scared me most was the way they described the beast. I remembered a myth from Greek mythology, about a monster named a manticore. It was a lion, with the face of a man and a scorpion's tail, fashioned like a knight's mace, with dangerous thorns the creature could shoot at you. Blame my curiosity, but this scared me quite a bit, thinking that mythological monsters or even Greek gods maybe, well, existed.

The last several weeks of school were torture for us ten friends. We were already anxious enough for summer to come, but ever since Hunter's party, we've been confused in frustration about the mysterious attack, worrying about upcoming events.

But by the time summer arrived, our feelings and emotions hadn't changed. Of course, with the burden of school off our backs, we felt a bit better, but we were still afraid of creatures with scorpion tails with spikes and lion-like features.

The next time all of us got together, Ellie and I decided to throw another party, staying indoors at all times. We invited the same people who were at Hunter's party─Hunter, Brianna, Andrea, Rosa, Melanie, Ben, Dmitri, Olivia. But Ellie and I wanted to also invite the new kid in our school; Peter Sullivan. He was sort of mature for his age, but all of us became fast friends with him. It was a sleepover, of course, with the five of us boys sleeping in my room, and the six girls sleeping in Ellie's room. Luckily our house wasn't too small, but some people would have to sleep on the floor.

I heard someone knocking on the door. I opened it to find the happy face of Rosa, who I hugged and let her enter. She hugged Ellie as well, and said

"Hunter and Brianna are behind my dad's car, and they think Melanie is a couple of cars behind them."

"Great. You guys are just on time." Ellie said with a smile. Rosa eased passed the door while Ellie and I looked outside of it. We saw a stretch limo, not surprisingly, driven by a chauffeur with black windows, and even though it was hard to see through, I could see Rosa's father, Miguel, sitting with a woman who I knew was Rosa's stepmother, Marianne Deegan.

She, meaning Rosa, had a nice stepparent as well, like Ben did. Marianne considered Rosa as her own child, and Rosa considered Marianne as her own mom. But Rosa, too, was like Ben, and understood the fact that Marianne wasn't really her mother. And Rosa longed for the mother she never got to see.

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. VanCleaven!" I said as if he were a friend that was my age. The window rolled down. They both said hello to me and Ellie, and the driver of the limousine took off.

We let Rosa inside, and we all went up to my room. We talked for a bit, feeling anxious for the rest of the party members to arrive. We were all experiencing that feeling, that some of us feel when we go to sleep and when we wake up it will be Christmastime─or that feeling when you're about to celebrate your favorite holiday in a few hours We didn't know how to describe it, but we were excited, no doubt.

My mother had ordered pizzas for all of us, which would soon be arriving. Most of us had the same taste in Italian food, particularly pizzas and pastas, but there were one or two pizzas my mom had to order that were vegetarian or pepperoni. The rest were regular cheese.

Car after car, my friends were quickly arriving to my house. Andrea, determined to make up for last time, came in a close third after Hunter and Brianna arrived. Apparently, Melanie was following several cars behind the Rivera's, because she showed up next, and the pattern continued with Ben, Dmitri, Melanie, Olivia, and finally Peter. He apologized for being late, and told us he didn't know the area very well.

We ate, watched some movies, and played games, the whole enchilada, before we decided to play Truth or Dare.

"Seriously, Melanie? Truth?" She nodded and I groaned "Fine." I thought for a second, and asked her

"If you were marooned on an island with only one person in this room, who would it be?" Melanie looked around, and blushed. She used a chicken and removed her necklace. We had agreed that if someone uses a chicken, they have to remove their clothing items, or, accessories, rather, since we had to keep clothes and pants on. I grumbled.

Melanie was sort of like that. She was sometimes afraid of the world, even though most of the time she is the one who brightens up our days when feeling gloomy. Her mother, Jacqueline Green, is a famous author. She writes a book series about faeries and wizards, and sometimes writes nature poems, but aside from that, she stays with fantasy. Rosa and Melanie were the only two people in our group who had parents who were famous.

Melanie's mom couldn't decide whether or not to name her Harmony or Melody. So, she decided to mix the two names together, to get the "Mel" from Melody and the pronunciation of the "ony" from Harmony.

"Okay, Melanie. It's your turn." She quickly turned towards Ellie.

"Truth or dare?" Ellie looked up at the ceiling, and suddenly said "Dare." Melanie grinned, as if this might turn out to be an interesting game.

"I dare you… to run outside and sing _I'm a little Teapot_ with the actions!" I heard a collective gasp from Ellie beside me, and she demanded her right against it.

"You have to," said Melanie. "You've already used all of your chickens, _Elizabeth_." Ellie pointed at her quickly for using her real name that she happens to dislike.

"Don't…Call…Me…That." She said taking pauses in between the words. Let's just say she wasn't exactly _fond_ of the name Elizabeth, and that's why she goes by the name, Ellie. Melanie continued glaring at Ellie, until she would finally break, which didn't take long. This was typically how they would decide on things.

"Fine!" Ellie screamed, exasperated. She marched out the room, and we followed her. Before we exited the front door, my mom quickly blocked it.

"Where are you going?" She asked speedily.

"I was dared to do something outside," said Ellie. "We'll come back inside in a second." My mother looked at us, but then closed her eyes and slowly nodded. We opened the door and walked outside.

It must've been a little bit after sunset. It was dark, but not as pitch as midnight. All of us walked down the driveway a bit, and into a little forested section of the two roads that part to the main road. Ellie made a spout like gesture, and began singing.

"I'm a little teapo─" She was interrupted by a noise. This was the moment when everyone began to freak out.

There were plenty of dogs in the area, but this wasn't any type of growl my dog or _any_ dog would make. I looked around, and so did the rest of us. Suddenly, I looked up. In the trees, I saw two yellow eyes, and, well, let's just say I don't think it was an owl.

Suddenly, it lunged. I felt something tug at my gut, as if either saying _run_ or _go to the bathroom. _Then, the strangest thing happened. The creature rippled and disappeared before its dark claws could rip at my flesh. Thunder boomed and it began to rain. We all quickly ran inside.

My mother was already waiting anxiously by the door, and I knew she was because we almost hit her in the face. She asked if we were alright. We began to nod, but then she asked us what happened.

Should I lie? Should I tell her about the creature with eyes and sharp claws? I didn't know. But all of a sudden, she began to break down in tears, and slumped down on the couch.

"Mom, what's wrong?" Ellie and I asked in unison.

"I─I wanted to keep you guys as long as possible. But it's just been─just b-been too long." She continued sobbing, but the sound of her cries slowly faded from me as I wondered what she meant.

"Do you think we should just go up to someone's bedroom and leave you here to think and calm down, Ms. St. Cloud?" asked Peter as if it were a secret code. My mother, still sobbing, nodded up and down on the couch pillow she was lying on. We quickly ran upstairs to my bedroom.

What was she worried about? I was pretty sure I was soon to find out. Sure enough, I was.

We sat in an uncomfortable silence. Personally I had preferred that before Peter spoke those cursed words. He said, "I know what that creature was."

We all gasped and turned towards him. "What did you say?" asked Benjamin.

"You heard what I said, and you know it. It was a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment." We all stared at him wide eyed before bursting into laughter. I figured Peter had made my whole year better by saying that funny thing and acting delirious when I noticed he wasn't laughing at all. He stood there with an expressionless face.

"Wait." said I "You're not laughing. Why aren't you laughing?"

"What I said is true," he said.

"Well, then what do you mean it was a hellhound from the 'Fields of Punishment'?" Andrea demanded.

"I believe you guys are familiar with Greek mythology? Preferably I'm hoping you know about the Greek gods and goddesses?" All of us slowly nodded.

"This is going to be hard to believe, and I know you guys are going to laugh when I say this, but the Greek gods are real." We didn't laugh as he expected us too, since we noticed the tone in his voice was normal, and he wasn't cracking a smile.

"How could they be?" Brianna asked "They're just myths to explain nature and lightning."

"That's a lie. Ever since the so-called science came into the picture, people wanted to make history by saying the Greek gods didn't exist and having fake theories for nature. But they didn't have any brains or knowledge─they simply just wanted to make history." All of us slowly processed this information, not knowing if whether or not to believe him.

"But, even if the gods _did_ exist, didn't the Fates end the rule of the gods? I read a myth about that." Olivia countered. He quickly turned towards her, and said

"The gods awaken after a thousand years of slumber. They stay awake for another few hundreds of years, and fall asleep again. That is why every few hundred years; a new, huge scientific explanation is made."

"But even if the gods _do_ exist, why are you telling us this, and _how_ do you know this?" Dmitri wondered.

"I'm telling you this because you are the children of some of the most powerful Olympians. I know they're real becau─" I didn't even let him finish his sentence before I said,

"How can we be children of the gods? Yes, I do agree that all of us only lived with half of our parentage, but that doesn't mean─"

"And doesn't that explain everything? The gods had to leave your mortal parents because of their duties on Olympus."

"Ha-ha. _Duties_." We all glared at Rosa for bringing up a joke like that in a time like this.

"Before I was so rudely interrupted by Ethan," Peter said, glaring at me "Dmitri asked how I knew this information. I myself am the son of one of the Olympian gods. I am Perseus."

Suddenly, he began to grow. He grew the size of a regular adult man who could be a father, maybe in his forties or thirties, and his clothes morphed into those of a Greek warrior's.

"I have the ability to change form," he told us. "I've come to take you guys to a school for demigods. Its called─" Suddenly, there was the sound of shattering glass outside my bedroom door. I quickly ran over to it and opened it. On the other side stood my mother with shards of a broken china glass that must've had water inside. She came barging in.

"You're not taking them! Not Ethan, not Ellie, not anyone!" She began to break into tears again, and sat down on my bed. Ellie and I sat next to her and tried comforting her, but it didn't appear to work.

"Ms. St. Cloud, they _must_ come to the Institute. Monsters are beginning to smell them. They're too undertrained. They were supposed to come three years ago. We've allowed you to keep them as long as possible, but now it's time for them to go." I wanted to ask a million questions, but they all jammed up in my throat, making me inaudible. I wasn't even listening to the conversation the so-called Perseus was having with my mother, but I didn't care. I wanted to know three things. One; what was this 'institute'? Two; how are all of us demigods? And three; _who_ is, or _was_ my father?

My mother's voice brought me back to attention. "At least let them stay until morning. I have to contact all of their parents and tell them they're going to the institute." Perseus nodded, and told all of us to begin packing. That was easy for Ellie and me, but not so easy for the rest of my friends. Both of us had plenty of clothes, so we let them borrow some of our clothing items, and luckily we were all about the same size. Meanwhile, I could hear the muffled voice of my mother downstairs talking to the other parents. We let our friends borrow some of our backpacks from the past to put some clothes in. At one point, my mother began to walk upstairs. Both she and Perseus walked into her bedroom, and began to talk about something. The only words I could hear were:

_ Perseus: I'm sorry, Ms. St. Cloud, but they must go._

_ Mom: It's okay. I just hope they survive. They'll be able to visit sometimes, right?_

_ Perseus: I'm positive they will._

That was all I heard when I finally backed away from the door.

Pretty soon, Perseus and my mother told us to come into her room.

"There are some basics I need to explain to you guys. But by now, I hope you believe me the Greek gods and goddesses exist." We all looked around and murmured in agreement, as much as we couldn't believe that the gods and monsters from Greek mythology really existed.

"First of all, the institute we were talking about earlier is called 'The Institute of Demigods.' I'm sure most of you have seen the Harry Potter movies or read the books, right?"

"Yeah," said Rosa.

"Instead of a school for wizards, we have a school for demigods. There, we learn to fight monsters and use your powers─"

"We get powers?" Andrea asked excitedly.

"Of course! The gods have powers, don't they?"

"B-but, I think we just didn't know demigods got powers, because in all of the myths about Greek heroes, none of them ever showed any display of special abilities. It just said they were able to fight monsters and stuff."

"Ah, I'm not sure why those aren't in the myths, but yes, you have powers. In fact, would you like to know what your powers are?" All of us began mumbling excitedly in agreement.

"Okay, who are your Olympian parents then?" The talking began to quiet.

"We don't know," Olivia told him. Perseus looked hopefully at my mother, but she had nothing to say.

"He never told me. He said that just knowing Greek mythology existed was already too much for my brain to handle. He also said that knowing what god he was would affect me. He didn't tell me, or the other parents." Perseus gasped.

"But this hasn't happened in nearly fifty years! The gods made an oath years ago saying they would tell all mortal parents that the gods existed so they could send them to the institute!"

"He didn't tell me, though."

"I guess we'll have to wait until you're titled the old fashioned way, then." Perseus said. "Titling is when your parent reveals to us who you are. After a few days at the institute, your Olympian parent will title you. When a god titles you, they're symbol and name appears in the palm of your hand. It won't fade away until you and the headmasters see it."

"Who are the headmasters?" I asked

"Myself, of course, along with four of the other greatest heroes in Greek mythology; Theseus, Heracles, Oedipus and Jason, are the headmasters of the Institute. We were chosen since we all developed a special skill that helped us on our quest, which you'll learn more about later. But time is running short and I need to get everything in."

"Well, what else is there to tell them?" My mother asked.

"I'll tell them about the veil and the dorms, but I'll let them figure out the rest at the institute."

"Okay," said my mother.

"There is this type of a magical veil which prevents the eyes of mortals from seeing monsters and gods as they really are. However, demigods can see through the fog, as well as mortals who were destined to fall in love with a god. Ms. St. Cloud, right here, can see through the fog, since she was destined to fall in love with one of the Olympians. That's why some kids claim they see stuff that their parents don't."

This slowly processed in my head, but hey, I dare you to have a new kid from your school tell you the Greek gods exist and transform into a Greek warrior named Perseus and try sending you to a new school for demigods.

"As for the dorms, each of the Olympian gods, and even the minor gods, is given a dorm at the Institute of Demigods. Before you are titled, you stay in the Headmaster's dorm, but when you are titled, you will go to the dorm to that of your Olympian parent. There are a few children in each dorm. Artemis and her hunters stay outside of the academy when they need somewhere to stay, but─"

"Who are Artemis' hunters?" I quickly asked. Perseus said,

"There isn't time for me to fit in any more information. I apologize, but you must be going to bed now that you know Greek mythology is real. This makes you more vulnerable and findable to monsters. I think you should all go to bed, and leave for the academy around seven in the morning. I will arrive here to transport you. Off to bed you go!" Before I could ask him another question, the air around him shimmered, and in a flash of light, Perseus was no longer standing in front of me, despite him being there two seconds ago.

I thought that I wouldn't be able to sleep, after all that happened the night before, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

I woke up at 5:30 when my phone alarm woke me up. It woke up the rest of my friends as well, and I could hear the girl's on the other side of the hallway awakening from their sleep too. Ellie and I always set up our alarm clocks to wake us up at the same time.

Luckily, in two hours we were able to all take showers and get ready. The rest of my friends called their parents to tell them they love them, and that they will see them whenever possible. I thought about writing to my mom while at the institute.

I walked downstairs and into the kitchen and gasped.

My mom had a _huge_ buffet set up for us in order for us to have energy. But I swear, it looked like my mom had bought the entire grocery store, or at least an entire isle. There was bacon and pancakes and strawberries, with milk and coffee for everyone.

"Mom," I said. She jumped, so apparently I had scared her.

"Yes?" She asked

"You didn't have to drag the entire super market back with you."

"How do you know I didn't just get all of this from the pantry?"

"Uh, because I know our pantry isn't even big enough to _have_ this much food." I said as if it were simple. She sighed.

"Oh, all right. I just want to make sure you guys have your energy for today. I never pictured you going to school during the summer."

"Don't remind me," I grumbled. Ellie was the second person to come downstairs, her hair still wet after taking a shower. She quietly sat at the table and began to drink her coffee and eat some bacon, strawberries and waffles.

The rest of my friends slowly began to come downstairs. Rosa came shortly after Ellie─she had taken a shower too, but she actually bothered to blow dry her hair. She didn't like it when her hair was wet for some reason.

My mom considers Rosa part of the family. She had always liked my little Rosa, and Rosa always liked my mom. With all of my friends here, we had to squish in at the table, and add a lot of chairs in order for us to sit. Unfortunately, a lot of food that my mother made went to waste, since we barely got a little bit over half of the food eaten.

Dmitri really only ate cereal and bacon, while the rest of us were willing to really eat anything knowing and half not knowing what the day would end up being like.

My mom already knew what and what not my friends were allergic too, so she made sure not to cook certain stuff─for instance, Ben couldn't eat any eggs, Andrea couldn't eat any granola, et cetera.

We were all talking and laughing when we suddenly heard Perseus' voice behind us. We yelped.

"Good morning," said he. "We have to be going soon." I could tell those were the words my mom wasn't excited to hear. She quickly hugged Ellie and me, as well as my other friends, and before we knew it, Perseus told us to follow him. He led us to the front door of my house.

He handed us each a weird looking device: it was oval shaped, and was a dark, navy blue color. Each one had our names engraved on it. They had some sort of magnetic sheet on the back. It reminded me of one of those tiny mirrors that are circle shaped and opened horizontally. But this thing wouldn't even open anything.

"What is this?" asked Melanie as Perseus handed her the device with her name on it.

"You'll see," Perseus told her. The magnetic side of the oval-shaped device stuck to the door as Perseus slammed it there. He pressed the button in the middle, and the device began to light up. It glowed for about ten seconds, and then died out. Perseus then opened the front door of my house, and the other side was _definitely _not my house.

There was a long, golden hallway, with light illuminating on the other end, as if this were the hallway to heaven. There were paintings that lead down to the other side.

"Well," said Perseus "Go on in." We did as he told us, even though we were slightly afraid.

It took at least two minutes to finally get onto the other side of the long corridor. There was another door on the other side, even though I expected it to be opened because I saw light on the other end. Apparently, I was wrong.

"Prepare to black out." Perseus told us.

"What do you mean?" Olivia demanded. But it was too late. Perseus opened the door, and all of us fell to the ground instantly in a deep sleep.

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed the new chapter! Remember, I am still accepting character submissions, but you still must remember that the characters you send me shall only be supporting characters instead of major. Here is a character form if you would like to send an OC, but before that:**

**ANSWER THESE CHAPTER TWO QUESTIONS!**

Do you feel that the story was rushed a lot?

Do you think you can guess the godly parents of each kid? If so, who do you think the godly parents are?

Why do you think they blacked out?

Name: (Please no uncommon or unique names like "Zelda". Please no surnames like "Moon")

Gender:

Age: (Only ages nine to seventeen)

God Parent:

Mortal Parent:

Powers:

Personality:

Weapon:

Physical Appearance:

Past:

Family:


	3. Chapter Three

**A/N: (Okay! I apologize but this is the last time I will re-upload Chapter three, surely! I was reading through it and found tons of mistakes, and sometimes my writing didn't process the correct way and made fake words! O: Anyway, please enjoy!) I am disgusted! ONE, One, 1, Uno, O-N-E Review from the last chapter! Ugh, and too thing I'm actually nice enough to give you guys a chapter only a few days later. You guys are lucky. Humph. Anyway, this chapter is really long, and some people discover who their god parents are! Yay! Anyway, enjoy!**

BY THE TIME I WOKE up, I couldn't put my fingertip on where I possibly was.

Of course, most probably, I was at the Institute of Demigods. My eyes were beginning to flutter open, and I knew I was sitting on a couch, but that was really only I could make out at the moment.

Then, my eyesight increased. My eyes adjusted to the lights above me, and I could make out faces above me: One of them was Perseus, no doubt, but I didn't recognize the other four.

I remembered what Perseus told us about him being only one of the headmasters here at the institute; could these be the other four greatest heroes in all of Greek mythology? Or would it be real-ology, since they aren't myths?

The other four men, all of whom looked the same age as Perseus─in their thirties or forties, and all of them looked incredibly different.

One of them had curly, brown hair which sat on a heart shaped face with grey eyes. Another had shaggy black hair with blue eyes. I assumed those first two were Jason and Theseus, while the one with messy blonde hair was Heracles and the redhead was Orpheus. I had never actually seen an adult redheaded person before.

"Ah, he's waking up," said the one I assumed to be Jason. Perseus quickly spoke to the other headmasters in a different language─Ancient Greek or Latin, maybe, and somehow I was able to understand it entirely.

He said: _You may leave now, for I have to lead the others to the other counselors for the tour. _Maybe that was one of the powers that all demigods possessed. Or was I the only one who could understand it?

I noticed some of my friends were already awake, while the others were just starting to end their slumber. I asked Perseus,

"How long have we been sleeping?" He responded quickly.

"Only about thirty minutes. We've been working to get that blacking out problem fixed, because we don't intend on having new students blacking out on their first day, but─"

"Do we black out every time we use our device to get here?" I asked, but then I realized it was probably rude to interrupt. "Sorry."

"It's fine. And no, it only happens for new students. I also find it interesting that you figured out what the device does so easily."

"I just sort of figured." I told him. Ben, Melanie and some others groaned and stretched. While the rest of my friends were beginning to wake up, Perseus said,

"You have ten minutes to freshen yourselves up and get ready. Then, follow me. I have to let you meet the counselors and take you on the tour." More questions started bubbling in my mind, sort of like last night when they told us about the Greek gods and goddesses existing.

The ten minutes passed by rather quickly for some of us, and slowly for the rest. For me, they went by slowly, since I was actually sort of excited to see the school, and it felt like torturous hours. But finally, after taking a few wash cloths to our faces and freshening up like Perseus told us too, he arrived back at the Headmaster dorm where we were sleeping, and told us to follow him.

We did.

Huge oaken doors opened to reveal a huge room that I assumed to be a common area, after walking through a long corridor that led out of the Headmaster dormitory. There in the large common area, a little bit over twenty kids who were either the same age as me, or were older than me, were lounging. Some of them on couches, a few standing up in groups, et cetera. Some of them were big and burly with huge muscles. Some were almost as beautiful as Rosa, but they looked like the anti-versions of her, since they wore short skirts and spaghetti straps.

Three of the kids caught my eyes most. Not only did I recognize them, but they were my old enemies from school.

What were they doing here? I thought. Several months ago, my enemies from school had mysteriously vanished into thin air─the rest of me and my friends were so happy, but now that feeling of bliss had vanished from our grasp.

One of them was a girl named Heather Thompson. She was a slutty girl, who desperately attempted to be pretty, but couldn't be. She could never match the beauty of Rosa or some of the other girls in my school. The thing is, Heather made bad choices─she smoked. She did drugs. She drank alcohol. She was the girl who made extremely bad life styles in our school. And it didn't even have anything to do with peer pressure. She did it because she felt like it─all of us partly felt badly for her.

The other two were boys─they were named Trevor Young and Jack Robinson. Trevor was a stereotypical jock, but he was also the strongest, most temper mental kid in our school. Jack was a huge pyro─he could set anything, and I mean _anything_ on fire. He was also creative. He could build anything as well. If these three of my enemies were demigods, I had funny feelings about who their parents were.

"Attention, everyone," said Perseus. "We have important information: ten demigods have been found!" Nobody made a sound. They just looked at him as if this were news they heard daily, which it might've been.

"And?" asked Heather. Now people made noise─laughter, that is.

"Alright, alright that's enough," said Perseus, waving his arms as if to turn down the volume. "I'm taking them on a tour. Please prepare your dormitories for when they are given a tour of it." Everyone groaned this time. More questions than before started brewing in my mind─though I was sure that they would be answered later. Perseus ushered everyone back into their dorms, which some were down another hallway to the left, another to the right. Perseus turned towards us.

"Well," he said. "Follow me." Perseus led us to another large door on the other side of the large common area. This one led to an outdoor area.

The outside was full of people. Out here, I could see dryads melting off of the side of trees, other demigods battling with swords, et cetera. Perseus showed us different things, like their outdoor dining area, which resembled the inside one, but had torches and stone tables instead of braziers and wooden tables. Their dining area had one, very long table, for all the children of the minor gods to sit at, and twelve smaller tables for the children of any of the Twelve Olympians. I felt bad for children of the minor gods─they were sort of neglected. Perseus also showed us the forest, and all of that, but I learned quickly that his heart wasn't exactly in the tour. He told us about all this fantastic stuff the school had to offer, but seemed in his own world, as if not caring about us or anything at the moment.

I wondered how Perseus knew exactly that my friends and I were demigods. Of course, the job was made easier for him considering the fact that we had all grouped together. Maybe when Heather, Jack and Trevor disappeared, he sensed all of us were demigods as well. I guess another thing that made sense was the reason I took my mother's surname of St. Cloud. I always asked my mother that, since my friends with mortal fathers had taken their surname. It was really confusing when I was younger. But now I understood: My father didn't have a surname. My mother always said that Ellie and I would know one day, and the closest hint she gave us was: You're father left before you were born, and I chose to give you my last name.

I also wondered if I would be in the right place at this school. Would I make a fool of myself? Would I be titled? Speaking of titling…

"The dormitories you are placed in," Perseus said, answering Andrea's question which I didn't hear her ask, "depend on which godly parent you have. For instance, if your mother was Demeter, you'd be place in the Demeter dormitory. It's sort of a mascot thing."

"But," I said, "what about some of the goddesses who don't have kids? Like Artemis and Athena and Hera?"

"Athena, believe it or not, has children, and therefore has a dorm." Perseus told us. "Not all of the Greek myths you've read are true. Some people wanted to believe certain things. That's why some of the myths are told and read differently. Athena is still a virgin, but she has children born from the essence and skull of her head, just like Zeus had her."

"What about Artemis and Hera?" asked Olivia.

"Artemis and her group of Hunters, which I told you about last night, stay here occasionally when around. In fact, they are here right now. Artemis has a dorm instead of a dormitory, just in the woods. But Artemis does not have any children, at least not that we know of. And Hera, she has fraternal twin girls, named Jessica and Juliet Phillips." I gasped.

"What!" I half-screamed "I thought Hera promised Zeus that she would stay loyal to him forever!" Perseus nodded.

"And she did. You see, young Ethan, Hera looked at all the demigods growing up and becoming great heroes when she wanted to have a child of her own. So, in order to keep from becoming non-loyal to Zeus, she told a peacock to get her leaves from that of a cypress tree. When the peacock returned, she slit her arm, and golden ichor fell from the place she cut. It drenched the leaf, and she told the peacock to eat it. Then, she slit the stomach of the peacock, and out came the fraternal twins Jessica and Juliet. Soon, she brought the peacock to Apollo for healing, and that's the story of their birth."

"Whoa," I said. Perseus replied,

"Yeah… Come on, lots to see."

Perseus continued the tour, when we were finally allowed back inside. Not that I had anything against the nice weather, but I was really excited to see these dorms. It had been about thirty minutes since he told them to clean up the dorms, so I was wondering if they were really small and finished in five minutes, or really big and still cleaning up the area that they started.

It didn't take too long before we finally made it back into that little common room area before our tour started. This time, Perseus led us down one of the side hallways, and into a _much_ more large area. This room was circular, with different doors all around us. Each of them was painted differently, and all of them had a golden number above it. The name of a god was painted on each door, in a different font and in a different color, and sort of the color you'd expect it to be─Apollo's name was written in a standard font, and the color yellow, like a sun. Aphrodite had a fancy cursive font with hearts coming out of some of the letters or dotting the lower case I's, and was colored pink. Hades had a font the color of black with weird designs coming out from the back of it, like shadows, and skulls and bones were drawn around it and… well, you get the point.

Two, more giant doors, were at the very end, and they were the dormitories of Zeus and Hera. They're fonts and golden colors looked exactly the same aside from the fact that they were spelled differently as Hera and Zeus.

"Now," said Perseus. "I am giving you a tour of each dormitory, so this way, once you are titled, you already know where everything is and know everyone and what not.

"Which dorm are we going in first?" asked Dmitri.

"We are going in the order of their seats on Olympus. This means, we are going from left, to right, to left, to right, and so on. First we visit Zeus, then Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, et cetera. Understand?" Perseus' voice wasn't angry when he said understand like you'd expect, but it was nice and calm. All of us quickly nodded, and followed Perseus into the Zeus dormitory.

The inside had Grecian and Roman columns, sort of like an Ancient Greek building, but it looked incredibly new, and sparkled white and silver and gold. It sort of reminded me of a mausoleum, or a bank. Nobody was cleaning anymore, as the room looked incredibly clean. Everyone was either reading magazines or was on their laptops or even talking on cell phones until we walked in and everyone looked up. They quickly got out of the beds they were sitting in and bowed to Perseus and looked at us.

A door, on the far end of the room, opened. A boy walked out, and before he could shut his door, I caught a quick glimpse of the bedroom he was in: it was like another tiny dorm coming out of it, except with a giant statue of who I assumed was Zeus, but could've been Perseus or something. The boy stepped in front of Perseus and said,

"Hello. I assume these are the new demigods?" Perseus nodded. The boy shook all of our hands, and when he was done, he said

"My name is Skylar Garcia. I'm fifteen. I'm the counselor for this dorm. Let me introduce you to everyone and give you a tour. Perseus, I'm not sure what you're going to do, so you can just─" Perseus quickly interrupted.

"I'm actually going to quickly check on the other dorms to see if they are ready, if you don't mind."

"Not at all, sir," said Skylar. Perseus opened the door, winked and left, making the room feel quieter to me.

"Well," Skylar said. "I guess this is the part where I introduce you to everyone." He began pointing to people and saying they're names and ages. First he introduced us to a girl with the same features of most people in the dorm─black hair, blue eyes and Mediterranean colored skin, named Madison Keating, who was his second-in-command counselor.

"Hey." she said, "Call me Maddie." She was only taking a few seconds to look up from her laptop. Skylar didn't seem to mind.

"She's fourteen," He told us. "I'm just telling you their age because Perseus told us it was an important piece of information. I don't know why." He began introducing us to the others─there was an equal amount of boys and girls, all different ages, except for a girl who was younger than Ellie and I, but still was thirteen. I doubted Zeus was my father if he was having affairs in the same year, just a few months after a god conceived me and Ellie with my mother. Her name was Amanda Harding.

Skylar then introduced us to another boy, the original dormitory counselor, Jeffery Langton, a twelve year old. Apparently, the only reason a child three years younger than Skylar was counselor was because he was the first official occupant in this dorm.

Skylar finally introduced us to the two final occupants of the Zeus dormitory: Ashlynn Ortega, an eleven year old, and Steven Fitzpatrick, a ten year old.

"So," I said, breaking a silence. "You guys are all the children of Zeus?" Some people smirked but tried hiding their laughs, and Skylar quickly hushed them.

"Come on guys, their new." Everyone quickly obeyed his orders as if his sentences translated to this in their heads: _Skylar knows best. Now listen to me or I'll have to kill you._

I looked at some of the braziers. They had different colored fires, and I wondered how they could be near the beds without lighting them on fire.

"Come on," Skylar said. "I'll show you the counselor bedroom."

We followed him into the room he had exited when we first entered, and just as I thought it looked like another dormitory, aside from the fact that this looked _partly_ normal. The giant statue of Zeus in the far wall of the room had two braziers settled next to him, and he held a jewel encrusted staff and an eagle was perched on the back of the throne Zeus was sitting on. Unlike normal statues, with just white colored eyes and white clothes and, well, white colored everything, the statue was filled with color. Zeus looked like an older, more mature looking version of Skylar or Perseus. He shared the same blue eyes and black hair. There was a bunk bed instead of just a normal bed, probably just in case there were ever two co-counselors of the dorm. There were pictures of Skylar and the woman who I assumed to be his mom, as well as some other kids who were probably his friends hung on the wall. There was a large desk with a few books and drawings on it and a lamp.

"It's cool," I told him.

"Yeah," Dmitri agreed. Skylar smiled. I figured we would be great friends, no matter who my father was.

Perseus arrived soon enough. He took us to the Hera dormitory, which was a lot like the Zeus dorm, with the same features and everything, just more graceful looking and what not. It had the same Greek and Roman columns, and the counselor bedrooms were twins. But the Zeus dorm had glimmered with holographic lightning bolts while the Hera dorm had images of peacocks carved into the walls. The fraternal twin daughters of Hera, Jessica and Juliet Phillips greeted us, and according to them, every dorm did have a statue for its patron, the Olympian god or goddess that was the mother or father of the children who inhabited it.

The Poseidon dorm was the first really different one. It had an underwater theme, and though it had the Grecian/Roman columns that the Zeus and Hera dorm had, the architecture of them made them look more like an underwater ruins, like Atlantis or something. It really was like an undersea castle, with sea shells encrusted into the grayish, bluish walls. There were streamers hanging from the ceiling which I guess were suppose to resemble seaweed. The walls moved as if you were actually swimming in a pool or in the ocean to look as if you were actually swimming in the water, as if it were projected on, with little bubbles flying up to the surfaces and waves crashing towards a small beach that could be seen a bit more towards the ceiling. The dorm didn't feel like home to me, as the Hera and Zeus dorms didn't either. Hunter and Brianna loved to swim. Maybe they were children of Poseidon. I didn't know.

We met the occupants of the dorm: their counselor, Lindsey Ahearn, her second-in-command, Eric Gaetano, and the final inhabitant, Ryan Tranter. They were sixteen, fourteen and eight.

The Dormitory of Demeter didn't seem to fit me either. All of the occupants─three girls and a boy named Kimberly Edwards, the counselor, Miranda Richardson; her second in command, Lillian Jones and Joshua O'Hare were a variety of different ages, so Demeter didn't have a lot of children. I knew Demeter wasn't my mother, since Ellie and I had to focus on the male gods, but I wondered if my mother was actually my adoptive mother or something, and perhaps I had a mortal father who abandoned me after my possible Olympian _mother_ left us. I didn't know. The dorm itself had a nature theme, something perfect for Dmitri's style. It was literally an earthen constructed dorm, since it had tree bark for walls and a real grass floor. There was a corner that had a garden with flowers and plants and tomatoes, and there was a glass ceiling, so sunlight could seep through, giving the plants life. Small apple trees fitted to grow inside the somewhat large room were sorted in corners, with beds underneath them.

Ares was _definitely_ not my place.

Just as I had assumed, Trevor Young was the son of Ares, which explained the muscles and minds just begging to start a fight. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible─these _weren't_ my kind of people, not my kind of friends. All of them had muscles and wanted to skewer anyone who got in their way. It was full of a bunch of boys and girls, all of which had evil looking sneers and listened to blaring rock music. Luckily we didn't spend much time in there.

Athena's dorm reminded me of a classroom, since it had SMART BOARDS, desks, library shelves. But this dormitory actually made school look interesting, because of it being all updated and high tech. There were a few scrolls on the desks. The windows were covered with grey curtains, and owls, the sacred animal of Athena, were painted on the walls. There were only a few occupants, a couple of girls and a small amount of boys, all of which looked incredibly smart, but didn't look like complete nerds. It was almost as if they were incredibly smart, but with words radiating off of them that said: _I am a nerd and proud of it. Make fun of me, and I devise an evil battle plan to hurt you._

One of us was finally titled over at the Apollo dormitory.

I guess it had something to do with her presence that made Apollo title her. We were talking about titling for a little bit with the counselor of the Apollo dorm, Timothy Bennett, when all of us suddenly looked at our palms. It was just some sort of instinct that we had that we decided to suddenly just say 'Let's see if my parent titled me.'

I heard a gasp from Melanie.

"I─I've been titled!" She shrieked with glee. She held her palm forward. Perseus quickly looked at her hand. The symbol of a lyre, an Ancient Greek instrument which was one of Apollo's symbols, had situated onto her skin. The name: APOLLO had appeared beneath the symbol.

"Fantastic!" said Perseus. "You may leave and get your stuff back at the Headmaster dormitory. No need for you to get tours of the other dorms if we know who your father is." Melanie quickly hugged everyone before leaving. The door quickly shut behind her. She must've been pretty happy. We were the first demigods in nearly fifty years to not know who our god parents were. It must feel special to Melanie to actually have been the first one to be titled. I looked around at what her new home would be: the Apollo dorm shined brightly, almost so it was hard to look at. There were many different paintings of the symbols of Apollo on the wall─there were music signs sort of coming from nowhere, there were suns painted on the walls, rhymes written on the ceiling, like prophecies or haikus. All of the children of Apollo seemed to enjoy music and poetry, but also spending time in the sun. Melanie was always the one who brightened up our days. It was a funny thing since the god of light was her father.

Since the dorm or _dorm_ of Artemis was outside, the spot of Hephaestus took her place, even though Artemis sat across from Apollo on the seats of Olympus. Perseus told us that the dorms were set up the same way that the gods are seated on Olympus, with six boys on the left and six girls on the right, with the exception of Dionysus, since Hestia gave up her throne for him.

Anyway, the dorm of Hephaestus reminded me of a tiny factory or a secret forge. I wasn't exactly sure how to describe it, but there were no windows, but smokestacks and a simple fireplace. The inside had dark, grey, cinderblock walls and one of those conveyer belts you might see at a super market, which might've been for anything from passing notes around the room to literally using this as transportation for lazy people. It stretched around the entire room, but stopped at the doorway. A lot of electronics and machines that were obviously built by the occupants of the dormitory were sprawled everywhere, so it looked like a real inventor's workshop or shed. Jack Robinson was the counselor, I learned which explained why he was so technologically advanced and was able to set _anything_ on fire, since Hephaestus was the god of forges and fire, the official blacksmith of the gods.

I didn't even have to look at the door of the dormitory to know the next one was for the goddess of love, Aphrodite.

I could smell perfume, but it wasn't heavily sprayed everywhere, thank god…s.

"Ugh," gagged Rosa. "Are we at the disgusting chamber of ugly already?" Somebody opened the door. It was a girl, maybe a little bit younger than us. She had golden hair and brown eyes. She said,

"Well, I consider it the sparkling palace of beauty, Miss. Whatever your face. Anyway, come on in." I could already tell that Rosa and this girl weren't even going to get along. It was almost like you could feel the tension radiating off of both of them.

The inside of the dorm was much different than I expected. I had thought it would be all pink and whites and reds, but there were tons of different colors, as if Aphrodite couldn't choose just one. The doors were pink. The beds had pastel blue and green sheets with feather pillows. All of the girls─I counted eight of them, and all of them looked incredibly beautiful, even though they all looked different. Most of them were wearing designer clothing, but one of them didn't─she seemed like she was the only daughter of Aphrodite who could be a possible friend of Rosa, who didn't care about her appearance. In fact, Rosa said,

"Yeah, _definitely_ a disgusting chamber of ugly." All of the occupants quickly looked at her, including the girl we just met.

"Excuse me?" one of the guys hissed.

"Don't listen to Patrick over there," the girl who I thought would be a good friend of Rosa said. She stood up, walked over to us, and introduced herself.

"My name's Isabel Porter. I'm the counselor."

"You're not worth Aphrodite!" A girl shouted. Isabel glared at them.

"They're just angry with me since I'm not like them. They have opinion and personality issues. I'm the kind of Aphrodite girl who doesn't care about her looks and appearance." Rosa gasped and Isabel quickly looked at her, half-excited if it was a happy gasp, but ready to put on an angry face if it were suppose to be a surprised and angry at gasp.

"Yes!" Rosa shrieked. "An Aphrodite girl I can actually befriend!" Isabel laughed, and the other occupants rolled their eyes at the "new girl", meaning Rosa. My final decision on my feelings for them: I wasn't exactly sure if I would like everyone here. Luckily, Rosa hadn't exactly embarrassed herself by pretty much walking up to a random person and practically asking her to be her friend.

Isabel showed us the counselor bedroom. Like Jessica and Juliet told me, each dorm had a statue of the Olympian parent its patron is, so there was a statue of a radiant and beautiful woman on a throne, the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite. The counselor bedroom, of course, had a bunk bed, and a desk, but was designed differently. The closest way Isabel could relate to her half siblings was that she liked celebrities and such. She had pictures of Justin Bieber, who I didn't really like much, but I guess Isabel did, and some other celebrities.

According to Perseus, a lot of famous people were demigods, and he happened to mention some of them. I found it sort of disgusting that Taylor Lautner was a son of Aphrodite, her half brother, and she had posters of him shirtless. He told me Justin was a son of Apollo, which is why he was a singer, as Apollo was the Greek god of musicians.

There was a closet and another bathroom, unlike in the other dorms, but since Aphrodite made this, I guess she just _had_ to add those two things. Isabel's personality and clothes sort of matched that of Rosa's, with just going with simple jeans and tee shirts or long sleeves, as long as it's not slutty or something like that. Before I forgot, I quickly asked Isabel a question.

"Why do some people date at this school? I've seen some people on benches kissing and things like that… isn't everyone here related on the god side? And doesn't that make dating gross, even though I'm sort of, dating someone, but still."

"Technically, you are only related to somebody at this school if you guys have the same parent. The gods don't have DNA, since they don't have normal blood, so technically you aren't related biologically. Considerably, you would be the aunt or uncle of someone if you were a child of say, Hades, for instance."

"Oh," I said. "Well, Rosa and I are dating. So as long as we have different parents, we're not related?"

"Correct," Isabel said.

"Good."

We finally saw the three last dorms, for Hermes, Dionysus and Hades. The Hermes dorm counselor was a girl named Nicole Marks, a girl with short auburn hair that she wore in a ponytail, despite the little pieces of hair that fell in front of and on the sides of her face that she called 'whispies' or something like that. She was just like Andrea─sort of immature, loved joking around, and will hit anyone upside the head with a shovel if that someone is messing with their friends. The Hermes dorm was full of mischievous, trouble-prone kids. It was the only dormitory that actually looked sort of normal, with brown painted walls and normal bunk beds and what not.

Like I had assumed, Heather Thompson was the counselor of the Dionysus dormitory, even though there were only, like, three kids in there. It made sense that the only girl at our school who did drugs and drank alcohol─that the god of wine and ecstasy was her father.

The Dionysus dormitory looked like a tiny vineyard, with a floor painted to look like you were standing on grape vines. There was a wine cabinet in the corner and a small wet bar in the counselor bedroom, but of course Perseus and the other headmasters didn't allow any drugs to enter the school.

We made our final stop at the dormitory of Hades. First of all, the only colors you could see in there were blacks and reds, and small amounts of purple, with green fire in the braziers. It sort of had a Gothic antique theme, but I wasn't exactly sure how to describe it. It had no windows. Obviously children of Hades didn't like the light like the children of Apollo did. There were skulls painted on the walls, heavy black columns.

All the dormitories had the same layout, but some of them have no windows. So the dorms are all of the same size and that's when the gods get to edit them by adding colors and what not.

There were five occupants in the Hades dorm, all with black hair and brown eyes and pale skin. There were three girls and two boys. The oldest, who was also the counselor, was named Edgar, who was sixteen. His second-in-command, Adrienne, was fifteen. The second girl was named Katherine, who was the only occupant that had a lighter hair color, meaning it was brown instead of black. She was fourteen. The second boy was named Draco, and he was twelve. The youngest and final occupant was named Pandora.

After meeting everyone and getting a tour of the room and everything, I was glad.

Finally, I thought. The tour was over.

"Hey, Perseus," I asked as we were walking back to the Headmaster dormitory. "How come you only showed us the dormitories of the Olympians? Why weren't we given a tour of the minor god dorms?"

"Sometimes," Perseus replied "we can tell whether or not when demigods are the children of a minor god or an Olympian. In this case, we know that each of you is the children of an Olympian god. So don't go wondering if your parent is a minor god or not, because you guys are children of the Twelve Olympians."

"B-but how can you tell that we're children of the Twelve Olympians? How can you tell the difference?"

"It depends on the scent, and the amount of monsters you attract. You guys attracted many monsters, and sometimes might not have even noticed. Your scent is very strong─that only happens with children of the Olympians."

"What do we…smell like?" Andrea asked curiously, sniffing her arm.

"You smell…of the gods," Perseus told her. "We'll go with that."

I remembered what Perseus said about us attracting monsters and maybe not even knowing it. In third grade, I could've sworn I saw a teacher of mine with just a single eye, right in the middle of my forehead. In fourth grade, one of my teachers turned into a dog type creature with midnight black fur, and melted into the shadows. All of the stuff that I thought were signs of me going mad were suddenly starting to make sense. Perseus said randomly,

"A lot of demigods are titled after a tour, so I'd check your palms." I looked at my palm: nothing. I looked at Ellie's: nothing either. Suddenly, I heard a few people gasp. It was Brianna, Dmitri and Ben. They were staring wide-eyed at their palms. Perseus quickly looked at all of their hands. I knew that Brianna and Hunter were full siblings, so Hunter is just lucky that he doesn't really have to wait to be titled anymore for his placement in the dormitory of whatever dorm he had to go to. But what if Hunter and Brianna really weren't full siblings? What if another god took the form of Hunter's father and made Brianna with their mother? No, that couldn't be possible.

"I understand that Brianna is your full sibling, correct Hunter?" Perseus asked.

"That's what my mother told me. I'm not sure if─"

"No," said Perseus. "I can tell by your blood. Both you and Brianna have the same god parent."

"Who is your parent?" I asked impatiently. Brianna quickly showed me her palm.

I was correct. Brianna and Hunter were children of Poseidon, god of the seas.

I guess it should've been obvious from the beginning, since they both loved the color blue, they loved swimming, when they went to Hawaii they just _had_ to go swimming with dolphins. But now, Brianna had a trident and the name POSEIDON beneath it, proving her and Hunter as a true daughter and son of the sea god.

"What about you guys?" Ellie asked, gesturing towards Ben and Dmitri. They both showed their palms, just as Brianna did to us. On Ben's hand, I saw a strange looking helm. It didn't take me long to discover it was the helm of darkness with the name HADES below the helmet. Dmitri's hand now had a sheaf of wheat, making him a child of Demeter, which was obvious since the beginning, but I guess the children of the gods can have many different hobbies and interests, and some children were even completely different stereotypes than their parents, such as some children of Aphrodite not caring much about their looks and such. But was Aphrodite insecure of her beauty? Or was she like Isabel? Who knows?

I was only sure of two things: Half of my friends have been titled by their god parents, and three of them were children of the three most powerful gods, and two, I didn't know who my father was. Ellie and I didn't have a changing appearance, so we couldn't be children of Aphrodite, even though our father is the immortal. I wasn't that much into darkness or shadow, so no Hades. I wasn't good at stealing, so I couldn't be from Hermes, and I think Apollo would've titled me at the same time he titled Melanie. I wasn't strong like the Ares kids, or creative and crafty like Hephaestus. So far, here was the list of gods that couldn't _possibly_ be my parents, not counting the female gods who we knew weren't my parents:

HADES

HERMES

APOLLO

DIONYSUS

ARES

HEPHAESTUS

Maybe I was a son of Poseidon. I did enjoy swimming, just not as much as Hunter and Brianna. Could they be my half siblings? I guess I'll find out at one point. The only people left untitled were: Rosa, Andrea, Olivia, Ellie and I.

Could I be a son of Zeus, the most powerful god? Could Ellie be the _daughter_ of Zeus? I could only possibly be the child of those two gods, if I really was the child of an Olympian. What if Ellie and I were the son and daughter of a minor god or something and Perseus didn't notice by the scent? Was it just us plainly hanging out with all of the other children of the Olympians? I'm sure that sort of thing would attract a lot of monsters.

I wondered when the rest of us would be titled.

Later that day, Olivia was titled by the goddess Athena, revealed her palm that had an owl and the name ATHENA on it, and left to join her counselor, Sophia Campbell and other half brothers and sisters. I wouldn't be able to sit with my friends at lunch tomorrow, considering they would have to sit with their half siblings─it's a school rule, kind of like an assigned seats sort of thing. Possibly I wouldn't be able to sit with some of my other friends either. Andrea or Rosa could be titled tonight, tomorrow. I wondered when Ellie and I would be titled.

Andrea, Rosa, my sister and I had a talk last night.

"Do you think we'll ever be titled?" Rosa asked. Andrea had fallen asleep about five minutes before, so I guess I lied. Andrea wasn't really in the conversation much.

"I'm sure we will be," I told her. "If the gods were suppose to tell our mortal parents, you would think they'd title us if they didn't."

"I guess," said Rosa, sadly.

"I think we should go to bed." Ellie said.

"Alright," Rosa and I agreed in unison, causing us to smile and quietly laugh. Ellie curled up underneath the covers of the bed we had to share. I know, disgusting, but we were siblings, so it didn't exactly matter. I kissed Rosa on the lips before she went to bed. She giggled. It wasn't like that was the first time we had ever kissed, but she still giggled when I did it.

I shut my eyes on the day where over half of my friends were titled, leaving only Andrea, Rosa, Ellie and I. I quickly fell asleep.

**A/N: I can be nice when I'm mad. Please try to review, people! It's SO easy and it makes my day! It's not like I'm asking you to paint my basement! All I'm asking you to do is click the "Review this Chapter" button and type some stuff! So please review, and answer these chapter three questions:**

**Could you guess the parents of the kids who were titled in this chapter before they were titled? If so, what clues gave it away?**

**Is the Institute of Demigods like anything you expected it to be?**

**Do you think you know the parents of the demigods who **_**haven't**_** been titled yet? If so, please guess in a review!**


	4. Chapter Four

**A/N: As you can see, I am a very nice person as to update a day after my last chapter. But that's because you guys reviewed, making me happy! Continue this, and there should be relatively quick updates! Fanfiction stopped being a retarted Kronos, and let me edit the last chapter! I had to delete my story and re-upload it, which is the explanation for all the e-mails you've received from me! xD. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter which I wrote in just about seven hours, basically from now ever since to the uploading of the chapter! Everyone is officially claimed-excuse me, **_**titled**_** in this chapter, so be happy! Anyway, please enjoy!**

I WOKE UP TO ROSA'S terrified scream.

My eyes popped open quickly. My eyes began to hurt the tiniest bit as my pupils dilated too quickly after spending a night under the eyelids and adapting to the bright light around me.

I looked at what the clock in the Headmaster dormitory: it was 6:03am. I quickly ran to the source of Rosa's scream. It came from the bathroom.

When I walked in there, I saw Rosa staring wide-eyed at the palm of her hand. I had assumed she had been titled, which I guess a lot of people would scream in happiness for, but Rosa's scream wasn't of happiness and joy; it was the complete opposite, composed of fear, anger and disgust. I quickly ran over to her, looked at her palm, and gasped.

It made total sense: I mean, Rosa _was_ pretty, very pretty. She was just like Isabel. She was another daughter of Aphrodite that didn't care much about looks and beauty. The other occupants of the dormitory probably wouldn't be happy about that. But now, my girlfriend Rosa VanCleaven had the symbol of a dove in her hand, with the name APHRODITE below it.

"It's horrible," said Rosa.

"It is not." I told her. "You're beautiful, Rosa. It makes sense." She smacked me.

"Stop trying to flatter me! This is horrible!" She marched out of the bathroom, her face still full of horror and revulsion.

"It's not the end of the world, Rosie. I─"

"Don't, call me that." She demanded.

"Fine," I said. "But like I said, it's not the end of the world. Isabel is just like you, another daughter of Aphrodite who isn't a slutty glamour girl. You're much more than that, Rosa, and you always will be." She slowly turned around, looked at me, and sighed.

"I guess," she said.

"No," I replied. "You can't just say 'I guess'. It's true Rose, and you know it." She smiled, held her arms out as if asking for me to hug her, and I did. That was only when I noticed that both Andrea and Ellie had awoken from Rosa's earlier screaming as well.

"Lemme' guess," said Andrea. "Is she a daughter of Aphrodite?" I nodded, releasing myself from Rosa's grasp.

"I guess that explains the makeover she gave you," Andrea pointed out. Rosa asked confused,

"What?"Andrea gestured for her to go into the bathroom and look in the mirror. She did, and I followed her. I looked in the mirror and looked at how much Andrea as right.

I hadn't noticed it before considering I had originally thought that something had happened to _my_ Rosa. But I was too busy focusing on her palm beforehand that I hadn't noticed what she looked like.

Rosa told me that her hair was a rat's nest in the morning, sometimes she'd find a new wart or two on her nose or even legs. But now, Rosa's hair was fashioned perfectly, as if she just spent two hours brushing the hair itself. It was shining underneath the bathroom lights, kind of like in those shampoo and conditioner commercials where they have the hair of spokeswomen done perfectly and have lots of lights above them to create a shine. Rosa's face was flawless, with her skin so perfectly soft and tight on her skull as if she had put on a thick amount of makeup─which I've never even _seen_ Rosa applied on.

She had beautiful, cherry red lipstick and blue eye shadow on that brought out the kaleidoscope colors in her eyes. Her outfit stayed the same. At least I thought it did.

Looking at what she had on last night, I realized what the difference was. Aphrodite's blessing had changed the designs on her clothes to make it more beautiful, more spectacular. Rosa screamed and immediately tried washing the makeup off of her face, but it was no use. It reapplied itself. She messed up her hair, but it transformed itself back into the supermodel do. I think Rosa wanted to cry.

"Please, mom," I heard Rosa mutter into my shoulder as I hugged her. "Please take away the blessing. I love you, and I'll love my siblings as much as possible, but I don't want this kind of beauty." I think Aphrodite heard Rosa's prayer. The makeup slowly faded off of her face. Her lipstick melted into thin air. Her hair was beginning to become a bit greasier and messier. The designs on the clothes she was wearing last night returned. I told Rosa to look in the mirror again. When she did, she squealed with happiness, and I chuckled. Then, her expression darkened.

"What's wrong?" Ellie asked. She and Andrea had both come into the bathroom several seconds ago.

"I just remembered," Rosa told us. "I'm leaving the headmaster dormitory to live with my brothers and sisters. I can't sit with you guys or, or─"

"It'll be fine," I assured her. But part of me wanted to disagree. Now that Rose had been titled, only Andrea, Ellie and I were left. I was wondering who'd be titled first. Would Ellie and I leave Andrea to herself, or vice versa? I also wondered how Andrea felt about being the last person of the group not including Ellie and I. Me and Ellie were probably feeling slightly the same, since we were twins and that was normal, but Andrea wasn't even related to me. I mean, she was sort of, but according to the daughter of Aphrodite, Isabel, that didn't count. Andrea was a completely different person, with different thoughts and what not.

Perseus and the other headmasters─Theseus, Orpheus, Heracles and Jason all quickly ran into their own dormitory. They were sleeping in the room next door. Obviously they had taken time for themselves to get ready and such, because they looked ready for the day, and Theseus said,

"We heard a scream! Sorry for not coming earlier, but we had to get ready! Is there something wrong?" Rosa revealed her palm, proving the headmasters of the Institute of Demigods that she was an official daughter of Aphrodite. The symbol and name of her mother faded from the palm of her hand.

"Well," said Heracles. "I believe you better get packing. I shall go alert the Aphrodite dormitory that they should be expecting a new sibling." Having said that sentence, Heracles left.

"Hopefully you will get titled," exclaimed Jason. "If your Olympian parents didn't tell your parents who they were, but exposed the existence of Greek mythology, then I believe you'll be titled. Of course, you would have to be titled but─nevermind. I assure you that your godly parents will send you a sign." He left, following Heracles' example, and the other headmasters either nodded their heads or winked, and left as well, leaving us alone in the dormitory of the headmasters.

"Did everyone get their schedule?" Andrea asked. I pointed to the table. This morning, before I went in the bathroom, I saw them.

I looked at what time classes started: 8:30. Fantastic; we all had an hour and a half to get ready. Well, sort of. Breakfast started in an hour, so not really as much as I thought. I wasn't sure if I would get a different schedule when I am _hopefully_ titled, but I didn't need to worry about that at the moment. I picked up the one that had my name on it. It listed my classes on Monday, which is what today was:

8:30 – 9: 30 BATTLE STRATEGY Perseus

9:30 – 10:30 BATTLE TRAINING Theseus

10:30 – 11:30 QUEST STRATEGY Jason

11:35 – 12:15 LUNCHTIME w/ Dormitory

12:20 – 1:20 POWER TRAINING Headmasters

1:20 – 2:20 POWER STRATEGY Perseus

2:20 – 3:20 POWER CLASSES Headmasters

3:20 – 4:20 MONSTER TRAINING Heracles

4:20 – 5:20 MONSTER TECHNIQUES Heracles

5:20 – 6:20 MONSTER BATTLING Perseus

6:25 – 7:05 DINNERTIME w/ Dormitory

7:10 – 8:10 FREETIME w/ Whomever

8:10 – 9:45 DORM CLEAN UP w/Dormitory

10:00 LIGHTS OUT

Looking at the schedule, questions were already zipping around my head like cars in a speed chase on the highway from policemen. But I had to get ready. I was going to look at Rosa's schedule, when Perseus marched into the dormitory and said,

"Rosa, I have your new schedule for the Aphrodite dormitory." She quickly turned around from packing up her things, took her schedule, and left. I asked her if I could look at the schedule, and she said I could after she was done. Once she finished, I took a look at the schedule.

We were in some of the same classes, but not a lot. Of course, we had eating times together, but we had classes together such as Monster Techniques, Power Training and Battle Strategy. Of course there was free time, which would probably be practically like, my favorite class since I would be able to hang out with all of my friends.

At breakfast, I sat at the head table with the headmasters, Ellie and Andrea. It was sort of discomforting to look at all of my other friends at their tables─Hunter and Brianna were both sitting at a table with other athletic, swimming athletes who ate anything _but_ seafood. They weren't going to eat their, in a way, brothers and sisters.

Ben sat at a dark table with Gothic kids with dark hair and eyes, surrounded by a sea of pale, white skin.

Dmitri sat at a table that resembled his dorm closely, with an earthen construction, emerald encrusted table with vines and leaves hanging off the side.

Melanie and her brothers and sisters made up a pretty large dormitory, but they're table resembled their cabin just as much as the Demeter's table resembled its cabin─it shined brightly and had a large sun painted on it, with lyres hanging off the two long ends of the table.

Olivia's entire table shared her grey eyes, but most of them had different hair colors, whether they were blonde or black or brown haired.

Rosa sat next to Isabel on the very end of her table so she wouldn't have to sit near a girly girl or a perverted boy, or any child of Aphrodite besides her new best friend and half sister. I was happy for Rosa, that she had a sister she could relate to, and didn't have to suffer by a surrounding sea of Aphrodite kids obsessed with celebrities and relationships and beauty. Her table had a pink cloth with the name APHRODITE stitched onto it in the color purple. There was a white trim on the cloth.

I noticed a group of girls with silvery clothing and jeans sitting in the corner of the outdoor dining area. By the way, it hadn't rained today, so we ate outside. Apparently the only time we ate inside was when it was snowing or raining outside.

As I was saying, I noticed a group of girls sitting in the corner with silver clothes. It appeared like they were trying to stay away from everyone, especially from the "infectious" boys. I had assumed the girls were the Hunters of Artemis, the band of Artemis' handmaidens that occasionally come to camp. There were about ten of them, and the lead one was a short, slender red haired girl named Clare Redstone. I had met her yesterday, even though she wasn't too fond of me, and so I decided to call her Clare Redhead.

A couple of timer wolves, out of the few, stood on their hind legs, and rested their heads on the table as if to ask for food. Suddenly, the leader, made a magical gesture with her hands, a silvery glow appeared around her, and a bowl of water and a plate of food appeared for each of the begging timber wolves.

Did all of the hunters have special powers like those? Or was it just the leader? What if Clare really was Artemis in hidden form? I didn't know, and I wasn't sure I was going to find out. I probably wasn't going to.

Suddenly, I heard a collective gasp from a few people who I was sitting with─meaning the headmasters and Ellie, while Andrea sat with her food untouched in front of her, awestruck. I _knew_ she had been titled.

"I-I was just about to eat when I picked up my silverware and noticed the symbol and─" Andrea looked like she was full of excitement and anticipation due to the fact that she was titled. But a little part of me died inside once she was titled. Only Ellie and I were left, and I didn't know if we were going to be titled anytime soon or not.

I couldn't see the symbol, since Perseus was on the other side of Andrea and she showed it to him then. Suddenly, Perseus, Theseus, Jason and the other headmasters, Heracles and Orpheus stood. Everyone looked up at the table I was sitting at.

"Attention, everyone," Perseus called. "It has been determined."

"My father," Andrea said, still looking at the palm of her hand though the symbol faded, as if she really expected it to return.

"Andrea Martin," Theseus announced, "daughter of Hermes, lord of travelers, god of thieves, and messenger of the Olympians." Everyone started clapping, and Heracles whispered something quietly into Andrea's ears, maybe telling her that she'll have to leave for breakfast soon in order to gather her belongings to live with her new brothers and sisters. The table of the Hermes dormitory was clapping the most.

I guess it made sense that Andrea was the daughter of Hermes; she was mischievous, rebellious, liked to steal things. Hermes was the god of thieves, which easily explained that part of her. Hermes was also the patron of boundaries and the god of messengers; Hermes had to get around quickly, and Andrea could run really fast. I wanted to see wings all of a sudden sprout out of the side of her sneakers or something. Andrea was most of the time the carrier of messages in our group if two people were fighting (which luckily didn't happen a lot) or something like that.

The next time I looked over at Andrea's seat, she was gone.

I already felt abandoned. I almost wanted to cry, and I'm sure Ellie felt the same way, but I don't think people would find it very heroic if we did that.

It almost felt like Ellie and I were destined to be loners or something like that.

It was something. There was _some_ reason why we hadn't been titled yet, and potentially might not be at all, not ever.

_Stop saying that;_ I told myself. It'll just make you feel worse.

But part of me also wondered: would Ellie and I ever be titled?

After signaling us to leave the outdoor dining area, I caught up with Ellie. We were both heading to the same class, considering we were both in the Headmaster dorm and would have to share classes until we were titled.

Before I could ask her, she asked what I was going to ask, as if purposely trying to steal the thunder out of me.

"Do you think we'll ever be titled?"

There the sentence was again. It didn't matter if I was going to ask it to Ellie. Whatever the Fates choose to happen will happen.

I felt like I had an angel and a devil on my shoulder; except they were my father. Of course, the face and body were blurred out, so I couldn't tell if it was suppose to be Ares or Hades or whatever.

The angel version was saying something among the lines of: _Believe Ethan. Pray to your father. Pray to the Fates, anything. I will title you, no doubt_.

However, his evil clone said something more like: _Now listen, you worthless piece of trash. I'm not going to title you, ever. You weren't meant to be titled, and neither was your sister. I shall make you watch your friends have fun with their new found brothers and sisters in agony, just waiting to be titled by the father who will never title you_.

I wanted to scream, or blow the stupid devil one off my shoulder and into dust, pop him like a water balloon, anything. I wanted to believe the angel, but the other part of me wondered if the devil was correct.

"I don't know," I told Ellie. "I just pray to god…I mean, gods, that we get titled. I'll pray to the Fates if we have to. I'll do just anything to let me escape from the torture." I could tell I had practically picked up the words from Ellie's mind. Yeah, we were twins, but none of the other twins at our school could communicate the way we could; and most of the siblings at our school _never_ got along. Ellie and I were the only siblings our teachers knew who seemed to be able to understand each other, able to be nice to our flesh and blood sibling.

The first class of the day was… interesting. Of course, some of my friends were in my class, but so was the rest of their cabin, and they had to pay attention to their counselor, and couldn't talk to us much at all.

Battle strategy class was taught by Perseus, so I assumed that's what the name next to the class meant; they were the instructor.

Perseus taught us techniques for battles. Each headmaster was the headmaster of a certain thing. Perseus was the headmaster of Battle Strategy and Monsters, since he survived killing the gorgon Medusa and saved the princess Andromeda from the Kraken, so he taught us special skills that can save us death by just looking or touching a monster.

Theseus was the headmaster of strength and doorways, since he was able to navigate through Daedalus' labyrinth, and kill half man, half bull, the Minotaur.

Heracles is the headmaster of tasks and ideas. He went on the most amounts of quests than the other headmasters did, and he was probably supposed to get us ready for quests and things like that. The ideas part, well, he thought of the way to kill a hydra. So he might give us lessons on how to find out weaknesses behind monsters.

The headmaster of travel and sea was Jason. He knew how much dedication was meant in quests, as did the other headmasters, and he was most likely going to give us lessons on how to prepare and such.

Finally, Orpheus is the headmaster of the Underworld and Escape. He nearly escaped the underworld, and I learned that he really _would_ be teaching us how to get out of sticky situations, how to negotiate with gods, et cetera.

My classes passed quickly, but I didn't care, as it helped my pain.

At lunchtime, all my friends were now sitting with their half brothers and sisters. They would occasionally look at me and Ellie with sad, sympathetic faces, but someone in their dorm would begin to talk to them and draw their attention away from us.

Lunchtime passed, and the second third of my day approached.

Here at the institute of demigods, the day was split into three's, no matter what the schedule was: for me, the first third of the day was spent on mostly learning methods of the old heroes and how to escape certain situations.

The second third was spent on learning about my powers; whatever they might be, whoever my father was.

The third part of my day was more about monster fighting and monster fighting strategies.

Anyway, during my power training class, I sat there with the headmasters unable to do anything, while I got to see a bunch of other demigods demonstrate these fantastic powers: the Zeus kids could summon and control lightning. Hunter and Brianna's older sister, Lindsey Ahearn, could control and manipulate water telekinetically.

Ellie and I might possibly never know what our powers are, aside from the automatic powers that demigods are born with: but that really wasn't anything special. It was really only having the ability to read Ancient Greek, the ability to sense when danger was coming, occasionally have clairvoyant visions, develop superhuman senses like seeing the path of a gun bullet, and simply only knowing that every demigod has powers. But that almost felt like someone having the ability to sing or dance or something like that compared to all the other demigods I could see right now with fantastic abilities closely relating to their parents.

It was dinnertime when Ellie and I finally lost it.

We were eating our dinner, of course picking at it due to our sadness. Ellie and I were too preoccupied with looking at our friends who were now _laughing_ with their new cabin mates. I could finally feel the tears coming along. A single tear rolled down my cheek, and my face was becoming hot. Ellie and I both quickly looked at each other, and knew what to do.

We stood up, leaving our untouched plates of food at the table. Perseus and the other headmasters tried talking to us, but we ignored them and left the dining area, not caring if hundreds of eyes were looking at us.

We were now completely crying as we walked, letting the tears cool down our hot faces and not bothering to wipe them away. I looked up. The previously sunny sky had been replaced with thick, grey clouds which reminded me of Olivia's eyes. Loud thunderclaps began to sound. Thunder boomed and lighting flashed, illuminating the sky. This kind of weather had always calmed me and Ellie, despite the fact that it scared most of the other campers. Then, I heard a voice, but Ellie and I kept walking.

"Calm down," the voice told us, "your storm will only get worse." I could tell the person was grinning by the way they sounded. I tried identifying the voice. It was a voice I had heard yesterday. I tried figuring it out without turning around, since Ellie and I were still walking, but our pace had slowed since the person started talking to us.

Then, I recognized the voice: it was the voice of Skylar Garcia, son of Zeus. That was when I turned around.

Skylar, Ellie and I were all soaked by the downpour by now, but none of us cared. What had Skylar meant by _your_ storm? A storm that Ellie and I made? How is this possible? Then, I realized what was going on, and I felt excitement and joy.

I looked up into the sky after the rain had stopped. I was now looking up at a blue sky with a bright, yellow sun. The grey storm clouds had dissipated─just like our feelings of abandonment.

Ellie and I both looked at Skylar. He rested a hand on my shoulder and said four words that could've made me and Ellie the happiest people in the school, or the entire world.

"Welcome to the family."

**A/N: I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! Now, please answer these questions for chapter four!**

**Did you expect Andrea and Rosa to be the daughters of Hermes and Aphrodite?  
Did you expect Ellie and Ethan to be the children of Zeus?**

**Do you think Skylar Garcia is destined to be a main character in the chronicles?**

**Were all of the now titled demigods obviously the children of the gods or goddesses they were by the way I described them? Please tell me for future references in order for me to make it more mysterious!**

**Please review!**


	5. Chapter Five

**A/N: I apologize that this chapter is short, but I felt like updating. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to quit on this story. I want to make sure I don't give up on stories and/or fan fictions from now on. I started getting into a new story called "Trevor Campbell and the Seekers of Light" which is a story about wizards****I would post it here on , but unfortunately, considering it isnt a fanfiction, I can't exactly post it here. Unless I find a forum in which I can list the story under and have it considered a fanfiction. On Microsoft word, this chapter is only six pages long, and I'm sorry for it being short, but I want to like, get into the quest part so… yeah. Enjoy!**

AS SOON AS SKYLAR SAID those four words, Ellie and I quickly looked at the palms of our hands. A small lightning bolt had faded into existence onto my skin, same with Ellie. It flickered, which was something I was surprised by. The others didn't have a moving animation on their hand or something like that. There was a small bit of lightning coming out of it, and connected to it was the name ZEUS, as if the lightning were creating the name.

I looked up. Skylar was already walking away, his hair and arms still soaked from the water that poured down no less than a minute ago, as were Ellie's and mine. I quickly ran up to him, and my twin sister followed my example.

"Sk-Skylar!" I called to his attention. He turned around and said,

"Yes?" expanding on the letter e more than he should, so it sounded more like 'Yeeesss?'

"W-Well, is it official now? Are we children of Zeus?" Then I noticed everyone else at the picnic area was looking at us. They hadn't been touched at all by the rain, since the storm clouds were only following Ellie and I, and we were walking _away_ from the picnic area. I wasn't too far away that they couldn't hear me, so I heard gasps and mutters coming from everyone, saying things like,

"Did you just hear him?"

"I think Ethan and Ellie were titled by Zeus!" and things like that. I looked at Ellie. She nodded, as if she knew exactly what I was going to do. We held out our palms. Everyone rushed forward to get a better view, and some people either groaned of jealously, while some others patted Ellie and me on the back in congratulations. I noticed Rosa, Ben, Andrea─the entire group, standing off in the distance, smiling due to our titling, smiling because Ellie and I felt no longer abandoned.

It wasn't long after that when Perseus moved me and Ellie into the Dormitory of Zeus. It was only then that it felt like home to me.

Every dorm seemed to increase in size as new occupants who were officially the son or daughter of that god or goddess was titled and place in the dorm. A new bunk bed was added for both me and Ellie to share.

"I call top bunk!" I gasped randomly. Ellie rolled her eyes.

"I don't care," she said. I climbed up the top of the bunk and set my backpack down on the other side of the bed. I tucked my arms underneath my neck and looked up─constellations swirled on the domed ceiling as if it were a video being projected, set on replay. Lightning flashed from the clouds. The ceiling literally looked like the night sky. It wasn't the dark shade that made up the Hades dormitory; it had patches of blue and misty grey, with clouds, of course that shot fake lightning that illuminated the ceiling and disappeared again. Thunder rumbled constantly in the dormitory, so I was wondering how I would be able to get any sleep.

"I hope you enjoy your new dormitory," Perseus said before slowly shutting the door and quietly muttering to himself.

"So," I said, breaking an uncomfortable silence, "I guess we didn't really have much time to meet each other yesterday. So, I'm Ethan, son of Zeus, I guess." Ashlynn and Steven, the two youngest children of Zeus at the Institute of Demigods, chuckled, while Madison grinned and Skylar smiled. Amanda and Jeff were smiling too, and I knew that everyone in this room─my _brothers_ and _sisters_ would get along great.

The best part about being an inhabitant in the Zeus dormitory is that you would never be lonely. Surely, everyone would be with you through everything, no matter what. It was going to make Ellie and I feel accepted, amazing, not abandoned.

I wondered what my new schedule was going to be. In fact, just before I was going to ask Skylar about that─since he was the counselor and picked all of our activities─he handed me and Ellie a new sheet of paper with our names on it, showing our new schedule. Of course, each day had different classes in a different order, for instance, I would start with monster battling on Wednesdays now, on Thursdays I would start off with quest strategy, that sort of thing. Each day had a different schedule, a different class to go to at different times than the day before.

"Well," Skylar said, "considering it's only about ten minutes after dinner, we should be heading to our next class. The teacher should understand our being late since the add-on of occupants in the dormitory. Of course, I'm not blaming you, Ethan and Ellie."

"It's fine," I said. "What class do we have next anyway?" I held up my schedule. I remembered it was Tuesday today. I looked at my schedule, and gazed one line below the one that says dinner, and it indicated that I had power training right now. I grinned as I looked at my paper.

"Power training," I said to Skylar. "We have Power training right now."

"Excellent." Skylar said. He thanked me and told everyone to get ready. He then led us out of the dormitory and back outside. The only reason power training was outside was something to do with a disaster happening a while ago─like a daughter of Hades unleashing undead skeletons in the school or something like that. I didn't know, but I did know that I was excited for this class. Why? 'Cause I wanted to see if I might learn any powers that a child of Zeus might have.

At power training, the teacher─or should I say _teachers_ since all of the headmasters taught the class─had us sit in groups with our dormitory. Apparently, here at the school, they had us do games sometimes, which was what we were apparently doing today. The headmasters considered duels a _special treat_. Being a new kid here at the Institute of Demigods, I, and I'm sure Ellie felt the same way, felt like toast. We didn't know how to use our powers. We didn't know what powers we could control. I remembered yesterday when my brothers and sisters─whom I didn't even know I was related to yet─showed some sort of electrokinetic abilities. So I guess it would make sense if Ellie and I could control that, but otherwise, we had no idea what our powers were.

I looked around at the other dormitories that shared the class─Demeter, Apollo and Ares.

Please don't make me face an Ares kid, I thought, or Dmitri or Melanie in the Demeter and Apollo dorms. Please let the headmasters have a rule in which we have to learn to use our powers first in order to duel.

"May I have your attention, please," Heracles called. Everyone looked up.

"Now, since we have new children of the Olympians, we must wait for them to get to know and understand their powers first. So Dmitri Gardner, Melanie Green and the St. Cloud siblings please step forward and sit on the grass and watch the others." We did as we were told. I saw my dormitory huddling in a group, as were the others. They had finished their battle plans at one point, and the headmasters stated the rules of the duel.

"I would pay attention to this, newbies," Jason stated. "This'll help you in future duels." I could tell Jason wasn't trying to be mean when he said _newbies_ or trying to make us pay attention. It wasn't like we were talking a lot or anything. I began to listen to the rules that Theseus was listing.

"The objective is you must stand victorious to the other dorms. If you run out of weapons and have no more powers to use, you must forfeit. All powers and weapons are allowed, and there is to be no intentional maiming. You may begin on three." The three dormitories face each other, looking anxious.

"One," said Perseus. Already the Ares dormitory was grinning.

"Two," Orpheus said. The Demeter dormitory looked a little scared; they might've been the weakest dormitory there. My dorm looked the most ready, the most excited. After all, we were basically the most powerful people here, as we were the children of the King god, the almighty Zeus.

"Three!" All the headmasters shouted in unison. Some people started using their powers, others grabbing weapons. Some of the children of Demeter like Lily Jones, Miranda Richardson, Joshua O'Hare, began to pull out weapons such as swords or bows and arrows. Some of the children of Ares _including_ my old enemy, Trevor Young began waving their arms. In seconds, the arrows and swords began to turn to rubber and plastic.

The counselor of Demeter, Kimberly Edwards, was growing and manipulating the plants around her. My dormitory zapped lightning on the plants causing instant fire to spontaneously erupt upon the flowers and grass, making it burnt and causing death in it. Kimberly growled in frustration, but then suddenly smiled.

The rest of the dormitory looked at her as if they had gotten the message. They all grinned and lied down on the grass. Suddenly, they disappeared. They had literally camouflaged with the plants.

I noticed Dmitri taking notes. He was listing the powers he was seeing, most likely so he could ask Kimberly or somebody later on how to control it.

Suddenly, plants and roots began to twirl around the children of Ares. Even though they looked pretty strong, the plants were very powerful and kept them within. The Ares dorm was out of the game, and they didn't seem happy about it.

Demeter's children became visible again, and suddenly, my team summoned another powerful lightning strike upon the opposing team's plants, causing a large inferno of fire. My dormitory, had won.

The rest of the day passed by rather quickly; I noticed that ever since Ellie and I had been titled, days didn't seem to be boring and slow, but they were now exciting and fast. It all had been going great. Until one day…

I was sitting in Monster Technique class. We were talking about different types of strategies for battling monsters, and clever ideas to stop monsters when I suddenly heard Perseus' voice over the school intercom yell:

"Sorry for the interruption. The following people must report to the Headmaster dormitory: Ethan St. Cloud, Ellie St. Cloud, Benjamin Rich, Andrea Martin, Hunter Rivera, Brianna Rivera, Rosa VanCleaven, Olivia Johnson, Dmitri Gardner, and Melanie Green." I stood as Perseus called my name. "Thank you." I could hear the clicking of Perseus hanging up the intercom from the Headmaster dormitory. I met up in the Headmaster dormitory with all of the other people called over the intercom, my friends.

_What's going on? _I thought.

**A/N: Sorry for the short-ness of the chapter, but HEY, I updated! Anyway, I'll be posting a new chapter soon enough... so please review!**

**CHAPTER FIVE QUESTIONS:**

**What do you think they are in trouble with Perseus for?**

**Did you enjoy the display of demigod powers I had so far?**

**Do you think Ethan and Ellie will get along with their half-siblings?**


	6. Chapter Six

**A/N: New Chapter! To ensure that I didn't quit this story, I've dedicated most of my school vacation to working on this. Then, I'll hopefully get to a point where it so good that I don't want to disappoint my fans in my writing! So here it is!**

I WASN'T SURE WHAT TOexpect.

All of us quickly showed up at the Headmaster Dormitory and the headmasters themselves weren't even present. I was wondering if we were in trouble because of what someone─most likely Andrea─did. Had the headmasters twisted her words somehow and get us all blamed? I guess we would soon be figuring out.

Five minutes passed since we walked into the Headmaster Dormitory and sat on the bench, and none of them were still here. I could tell Ben was starting to get pissed.

"Okay," he said, getting out of his seat, "I'm through with this. I'm leaving." Ben tried exiting the room through the large doorway, but a translucent wall of energy blocked his path. He quickly sat back down.

"Ha!" A voice said. "I told you Ben would be the first." I recognized the voice as Headmaster Jason. I heard several invisible people groan. All of the headmasters suddenly came into picture. Theseus, Perseus, Heracles and Orpheus were circling him, dumping gold-colored, old looking coins into his hands.

"Sorry for the long wait, but Jason just _had_ to make a bet. Either way, we're glad you arrived." Melanie's hand rose.

"Yes?" Jason asked, shoving the coins in a bag.

"Why are we here?" The headmasters looked at each other.

"We called them to the office," Theseus said, "of course their going to wonder that." Perseus sighed and rolled a chair over.

"You've heard of most demigods going on quests, right?" All of us nodded.

"You're not thinking of sending us on one, right?" Rosa demanded. "We only figured out we were demigods less than a week ago!"

"Yes, I understand that," said Perseus, "but we need demigods we can trust."

"Why can't you trust any other demigods who have been here longer than us? Why are you sending us on a quest anyway? It's not wise!" There was Olivia again, always saying something like 'It's not a logical decision. Redo your math.' Heracles pointed out,

"We've lived for thousands of years, sweetie. Don't tell us what is and what isn't wise." Olivia rolled her eyes, but Heracles and the other headmasters didn't seem to notice.

"Perhaps we should show them the map," Theseus reasoned. The headmasters' faces seemed to agree, as if this were a good idea. Perseus waved his hand, and all of the doors in the Headmaster Dormitory closed and locked, with shades over them and iron bars over that. Interesting, I thought. Then, Jason looked at a wall, and a giant map of the United States appeared as if it were being projected onto the wall, but there was a light shimmering in the Colorado area.

"Come take a seat," said Heracles. We walked over to where the map on the wall was, and sat down in front of it with our legs crossed.

"Right here," Perseus said, waving his hands around the glowing part in the Southwest part of Colorado, "is where our threat is. There have been many monster detections there, and we want to know why."

"So why can't you go see it for yourselves?" I asked.

"We have a school to teach," Theseus and Heracles said in unison.

"B-but how come us is what I'm wondering." Andrea asked. "Why did you choose _us_ of all people to go?"

"We sense you are powerful demigods," Jason told us.

"This all sounds like a movie to me," said Brianna.

"I'm sure it does, but this is serious. You _must_ go on this quest." Hunter began,

"But we barely know anything about our powers or how to fight monsters─" He was cut off Perseus, who said,

"That is why you aren't leaving for another two weeks. We must devise a plan on how you will get all the way to Southwest Colorado. We thought of this ahead of time. We weren't planning on sending you out there without any training. You are dismissed."

"But─"

"Dismissed," Perseus repeated. All of us quickly stood up and left the Headmaster Dorm.

"I can't believe their doing this," Hunter said. "We've gotten barely any training and─"

"Do you listen to them at _all_?" Ellie joked. Hunter grinned.

"I still don't think the choice is smart," Dmitri said, which scared me a little. I think his dating Olivia was beginning to turn him into a part-time son of Athena.

"There's nothing we can do about it," I said. "The only thing we can do is waiting, because whether we like it or not, we have to go on this quest─Headmaster's orders." Everyone sighed, and returned to the class we were at before.

Two weeks passed. We had done a lot of training with not only fighting monsters but learning what powers we could possess. I didn't know much of what my other friends could do, but I did know some of the abilities belonging to Dmitri, Ben, Rosa and Andrea, but only because they were in my classes or they showed me themselves.

I learned in one of my power classes that Rosa had the following abilities:

Rosa has the ability to change her physical features, which explains her color changing eyes.

Rosa can talk to animals and plants having to do with love, like the dove or a rose.

Rosa can make people around her appear beautiful or ugly.

It was quite interesting having all these abilities displayed in front of me. I wanted to know what powers my other friends had, considering we all had different Olympian parents.

Ben and I were walking to dinner one night when it was dark out and we could barely see. Apparently, children of Hades can sense where they are in the dark, which I guess would make sense.

Dmitri could camouflage with plants and nature, like I'd observed before in the battle training class when his dormitory members did this, but I wasn't sure if they were actually camouflaging or using nature to conceal their presence.

Ellie and I figured out several things, which included the ability to create lightning bolts at will, send powerful amounts of static energy through somebody's body on contact, and we also appeared to have a telepathic connection with aviary animals, such as a hawk or an eagle.

Andrea, Ellie and I were talking the night before we were supposed to leave. We were the only ones awake, while the others wanted to ensure they woke up at the correct time. We were in the Headmaster Dormitory because the headmasters wanted us to sleep there for the night so we could leave as soon as possible in the morning. We began talking to Andrea because she was cutting up little pieces of paper and writing numbers on them.

"What are you doing?" I asked. She quickly looked up and accidentally messed up on her letter five she was writing.

"Well," she said, gesturing at the pieces of paper that obviously weren't money, but drawn to look like it, "we're going to need money, right? The headmasters didn't give us any drachmas or cash in the mortal currency. So I'm practically saving all of our butts." I picked up one of the pieces of paper. It was drawn to resemble $100.

"How are we going to trick any mortal with _this_?" I asked, waving the paper back and forth. She swiped it from my hands and put it back on top of the pile of one hundreds she drew. She waved her hand over all of the pieces of paper, and instantly, they turned into real dollar bills, the amount of whichever number of money she wrote on the paper!

She had tiny circular pieces of paper as well, and they looked like the coins that Jason had collected from the other headmasters─drachmas, she called them. They took on the same effect as the other pieces of paper had, except instead or turning into cash, they turned into drachmas.

"How'd you do that?" Ellie asked.

"It's one of my powers," Andrea told her. "I can disguise things and make them look like something different from what they really are."

"That's so awesome! You can make, like, a fortune! I want that power!" I was really ecstatic. I was almost jealous of Andrea's power.

"If we had time, I'd make you guys, like, a thousand dollars, but we need to get to bed. Maybe some other time, since you guys are my friends. Good night." She told us.

"Good night," we replied. Andrea shut off the light next to her sleeping bag, while Ellie and I did the same for the lamp nearest us. We set up our sleeping bags on the floor, and it took forever for me to fall asleep, because I wasn't sure what was going to happen on this quest─would we all die? Would we survive? Thousands of questions buzzed through my head; just like the night I discovered my friends and I were demigods.

It felt so blissful when I finally fell asleep.

The miniature but loud clock tower of the Headmaster dormitory rang loudly.

Lucky for the other demigods here at the Institute, the Headmaster Dormitory had soundproof walls, and didn't awake any of the other students. But now, all of us were wide-awake and in desperate need for a hearing check.

Perseus and the other headmaster showed up less than thirty seconds after the clock rang. It was set for purposely set for us to ring at 6:30 in the morning.

"Rise and shine," Heracles said, "your quest begins in two hours!" All of us groaned as if to say 'Don't. Remind us.'

"Quickly get dressed and we'll bring you your breakfast. Boys, take turns changing in the bathroom on your right," Jason gestured to the bathroom on the right, "Girls, take turns changing in the bathroom on your left."

We followed the orders of the Headmasters, and I was surprised when I noticed the girls changing relatively quickly─back at our normal school, in P.E. class, the guys are usually the first ones to get changed and out of the locker room, while the first fifteen minutes of our class is wasted until all of the girls were finally done. Now, every girl was getting changed in less than two minutes. Why couldn't it be like this back at school?

The headmasters came back in for about a fraction of a second. They quickly marched into the room, chanted in Ancient Greek, which made a table of breakfast foods appear─heaping plates of pancakes, waffles, toast─and then left. It was almost like they thought: _Oh! Let's walk into a room full of starving children, make a table of food appear for the little orphans, and leave! Ha-ha! Good deeds we are doing!_

"Okay…?" Melanie said in a sarcastic and funny tone, breaking a silence and making all of us laugh.

We were laughing as we ate, all sitting together, not with any half brothers and sisters who we despised─it was really only Rosa who hated almost all her siblings─and not having to listen to anyone. It was almost like the lunch we were waiting for the first day we came to this school. It would've been perfect if we didn't have to go on a grimy quest afterwards where some of us might die.

That's what most of us were afraid of on this quest─loss of dear friends. Perseus kept telling us that Death could be fought, accepted, but not feared. We tried thinking of that whenever we were afraid of death, but it wasn't always helping, but it did at times.

The two hours past all too quickly; I almost was getting lazy about the quest and didn't want to go. Perseus gave us a map of the destination we needed to get too, but also a list of progression we needed to get passed. For instance, it said that on the first day, we had to get to some hotel by the end of the night, and it said that we would have to get to Colorado in at least fifteen days. That's simple, right? Wrong.

I looked back at the all of the headmasters, but some of our half brothers and sisters who were standing there in the main common room, waving. We exchanged last minute hugs or fist-pounds with people, as if we were afraid these might be our last time meeting them.

We walked down the long corridor until we finally came to the door that was the entrance to the Institute of Demigods. I pulled out the oval shaped device Perseus gave me, and put it on the door. I pressed the button in the middle of it, and it began to light up, and after ten seconds, the light died again. I opened the door to reveal that the device had worked─the outside of the Institute of Demigods had been replaced with a long, golden hallway. The hallway that would lead us back to the normal world.

Back in Halifax, the morning sun gleamed brightly through the windows of my home, which is where we were transported back to. Ben clearly couldn't stand it, but I guess you'd have to expect that from the demigod son of Hades.

Dmitri looked at the list of progression. He said,

"By the end of today, we have to make it to the Seaport Hotel in… _Boston?"_

"Boston!" Olivia shouted. "How are we going to get all the way there?"

"Ethan?" My mother called in the kitchen. "Elizabeth?" We quickly turned to find out mother standing there. She hugged us.

We explained everything to her, about our classes so far at the Institute of Demigods and the quest we were about to go on. She was pretty much fascinated by all of our stories _until_ we mentioned that.

"At least let me drive you to Boston," my mother offered. We allowed her to drive us, since it would at least get us to Boston quicker, and Ben was most enthusiastic about it, because he didn't want to be in the sun for too long. All of us secretly think he's a hybrid of a vampire and demigod. It would make sense.

So my mother drove us to the Seaport Hotel in Boston, and Hunter and Brianna, I could see, were most excited to just simply go swimming their pool, or the harbor in Boston, which I'm not sure if you're allowed to do or not.

Unlike you'd expect, we were actually talking and laughing on the car ride there. We didn't seem really nervous at all, but that's because we hadn't really had real experiences with monsters. Perseus told me that the real world is where the monsters are, and the real world is the place where we _weren't_ safe.

To throw away time, we did some shopping and eating in Boston, because we weren't technically in much of a rush. But the hours passed all too quickly, because the day faded to night and made us had to get serious─now; the quest was _really_ starting to begin.

We stupidly told my mom not to wait for us while we attempted at getting in the Seaport Hotel, because we didn't actually know we would have to have a parent or guardian, or sign an application in order for us to get a room. We were just lucky that Andrea and Rosa saved us.

"Oh, but we have money, sir," Andrea said, dumping the money she made herself onto the counter. I think she dumped about five thousand dollars on there. He probably thought we stole this from a bank or that we're runaways that piled money together that we secretly stole from our parents or something.

"I don't care. The policy states that you must have a parent or guardian with you if you are under the age of eighteen, or a form must be signed from a parent allowing you to stay!" I could tell that Ellie, Benjamin and Melanie were getting ready to punch this guy. Maybe if we called my mom to come back.

Then, Rosa did something that astonished me.

"We've already given you the form, sir. All of our parents signed our ten different forms. You know that. We just showed you them. Remember? Oh, and we've already registered." Then, the guy's face lit up and his eyes blinked quickly as if he had just awoken from a trance.

"O-Oh yeah," the man said, "y-yeah I remember. Here are all of your room keys." He handed us a bunch of different keys, and all of our rooms were near each other, which was good. But how had Rosa tricked the guy?

As we were walking into the elevator, I was going to ask Rosa about it, but she seemed to know that I was going to, because before I could ask, she said,

"It's one of my powers. As a daughter of Aphrodite, I can persuade people to do things very easily. It makes sense how I could make you do all those things in the past." I couldn't remember anything that Rosa had charmed me into doing.

"W-What things?"

"Never mind," she said.

We all got settled into our rooms fairly quickly. We had five rooms total, and everyone had to share with someone. So, Ellie and I shared a bedroom, since we were siblings, and Hunter and Brianna did the same. Melanie and Rosa shared a bedroom, since they were best friends. Andrea and Olivia shared a bedroom, because they didn't want things to be awkward by sharing a room with one of their boyfriends. And finally, Dmitri and Ben shared a bedroom.

After all that happened today, I was ready to fall asleep. I wondered what tomorrow would bring. After all, yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. At least that's how the saying went.

I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

**A/N: Thank you for reading this chapter! I'm working on Chapter Seven and Eight next, since I already know what will be happening in those chapters, so expect those two soon! Please review! If you can't think of anything…**

**ANSWER THESE CHAPTER SIX QUESTIONS!:**

**Do you think anybody will truthfully die on the quest?**

**Do you think the saying in the end of the chapter is true?**

**What do you think will happen on the quest?**

**What do you think is happening over in Southwest Colorado?**


	7. Chapter Seven

**A/N: I've decided to re-upload this chapter since I edited it! **

I WOKE UP WITH SUNLIGHT streaming through the window.

I groaned and stretched, and looked at the clock. It was a little bit past eight in the morning, and I'm sure I was the last person to wake up, considering we didn't have alarm clocks or anything like that.

Everybody, apparently, was in the hotel room that Ellie and I shared.

"Um, hello…?" I exclaimed. They were looking over me.

"Get up, sleepy head," Olivia firmly stated, "I looked at the list of progression and by tonight we've gotta' be in south Connecticut."

"Are you kidding me? How are we gonna─" I couldn't finish my sentence before my twin sister hit me with a pillow.

"Just get out of bed," she said, "we're gonna leave in about an hour."

I dressed and showered quickly, and all of us headed downstairs for breakfast. I decided to make a tiny toast to Andrea and Rosa for getting us in here in the first place, which seemed to make them happy. The coffee we were drinking tasted good.

I looked at the clock before leaving: it was 9:13am. Hopefully we would be able to make it to south Connecticut by tonight. Maybe the Fates have something in store for us. Perhaps they'll send us one of the gods and they'll transport us to Connecticut or something, but I pray that the quest is complete, and we can just go home─or, back to the Institute of Demigods, I guess.

We quickly left the hotel and then faced the tough part─finding our way to Connecticut. We didn't know which way to go until Olivia shouted something in Ancient Greek accidentally and the map showed us exactly where we are, which path to take, et cetera.

The day was passing by very slowly. We ate lunch at some restaurant, and it must've looked weird to some people to see ten teenagers suddenly walk into a restaurant with no adults by themselves, when they're thirteen and twelve.

Of course, sometimes you see that sort of thing at a pizza place in a town, but not in a city, in a five-star restaurant.

Luckily, we eventually were able to hitch a ride on a bus in north Connecticut and get all the way down to the southern part of the state, which helped a lot. We got off the bus stop and followed the map again, determined to reach our destination.

We met our first monsters when we walked by the cement building in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut.

We were still following the map, of course, but Rosa found a cute looking cat, and just _had_ to follow it. What I found ironic was the fact that she was allergic to cats, but found them so cute she just had to follow one. It was silly and sort of stupid.

"Rosa," Melanie said "would you just _let it go?_ You're allergic to cats! You shouldn't be trying to take it anyway!"

"But they're cute!" Rosa pouted.

Suddenly, I heard a gasp. I hadn't actually taken much of a look at my surroundings, but the source of the gasp seemed to come from behind the building we were about to pass, made of cement.

"What was that?" Ellie asked.

"I don't know," said Andrea. "Let's go see."

We walked around the cement building, but couldn't find anything. We came to the conclusion that it was just our imaginations─but how could we _all_ have heard it?

After circling the small building next to the road like it was an island and we were sharks, Rosa began to chase the cat again.

"Seriously?" I asked.

"Seriously." Rosa repeated and/or imitated.

"Like Melanie said, Rose, you're allergic to cats. Don't go near it."

"I don't care!" Rosa screamed. "I love cats!" All of us groaned.

The small kitten ventured into the cement building. All of us followed Rosa as Rosa followed the feline. The cement building was dark, so we all tried looking for a light.

As if it were automatic, the lights began to shine everywhere. But it wouldn't be delayed that long. I looked around. Again, I saw nothing. I noticed a light switch by the door. Someone was following us; someone had turned the light on.

I quickly ran over to the door. I looked on either side of the door. Nobody was on the right or left. It was as if the gods were watching from the heavens and randomly saying: _Oh! We've gotta do this!_ And then turning on the lights or something like that.

I would've pondered on it longer, but we had a quest to think about.

"Come on guys," I said, "we're forgetting about our quest. We have to leave."

"Right," Benjamin agreed.

We walked outside again, but this time, there was another cat. The cat that Rosa was earlier chasing walked over to it and sat right next to it calmly, as if they were the greatest animal friends the world could ever see, which sounds like something on a cartoon.

Suddenly, both cats grew, and I knew this wasn't normal. Something mythology related, most likely a monster, was going to battle us.

I tried remembering any Greek myths about cats, but I couldn't. I remembered that in Egyptian mythology, cats were sacred, but that's not what I was supposed to worry about at the moment. I looked back at them both.

The new cat we'd just found was now beginning to turn into a small lion; a lioness. A small bump was growing on its back: a goat head popped out. Its tail began to grow, and turned a sickly greenish color. It finally transformed into a snake. It was a female creature composed of three animals: upon the body of a lioness, a tail that ended in a snake's head, and the head of a goat which arose on its spine. It was a Chimera.

I looked at the cat we saw earlier. It too was a lion, but not a lioness. It was like, legit a lion, except what really stood out was its fur. It shimmered golden. I didn't even have to ask anyone what this creature was. I knew we were about to fight a Chimera, and the Nemean Lion.

I forgot to tell you; just as the gods reform after a thousand years of slumber, all of the slewed monsters do as well. That is why monsters which have already been beaten by heroes are over and over again defeated by new demigods.

All of us screamed once both of the giant lions growled ferociously. Our first instinct was to get out weapons and begin using our powers─but I remembered that the Nemean Lion's fur protected it. I do remember how Heracles killed it though: shooting arrows through its unprotected mouth.

Ben suddenly disappeared: he was using the darkness of night to conceal his presence, which was an ability I knew children of Hades possessed.

Dmitri was growing and manipulating plants, which choked the tail of the Chimera, a snake, causing venom to come out. Eventually, the snake choked to death. _Congratulations, Dmitri! You killed one third of the Chimera! _

It was kind of funny to watch the Chimera run around with a dead snake for a tail: it just kind of sat there doing nothing, and it was flat.

I noticed Olivia had pulled out a dagger; her mother was the goddess of battle, so naturally she was good in hand-to-hand combat, and she also excelled in making battle strategies, and is very intelligent, since Athena is goddess of wisdom.

Andrea could run pretty fast; but the Nemean Lion was chasing her, and nobody was really helping her. Melanie was helping Andrea a little bit; she has Photokinesis, the ability to control and manipulate sunlight, which helped Andrea see in the dark evening. When I noticed Ellie beginning to use her powers, I remembered that I should be helping too.

I summoned a large lightning bolt. It immediately zapped the head of the goat which caught on fire. I noticed that most of the time everything caught on fire when a child of Zeus summoned lightning bolts. I had killed the second third of the chimera, and now we just had to kill the lioness, but it wasn't like we were _just_ fighting a Chimera. We had the Nemean Lion to think about.

I wondered what would happen if a mortal just randomly passed by, seeing a lion and a lioness getting beaten by ten kids. That would be quite an interesting sight to see, wouldn't it be?

Suddenly, the Earth rumbled beneath my feet. Hunter and Brianna stood there calmly. It was then that I noticed it was _them_ that created the earthquake. But it wasn't just any type of earthquake─it was only active in the particular spot our group was at; the people on the street nearby probably didn't feel it. The ability itself was probably making personal earthquakes. I guess it would make sense that both the Rivera siblings could control earthquakes, considering their father is the god of earthquakes.

Suddenly, a crevice in the Earth opened below the Chimera. It was Ben who created the crevice. I could tell because hellfire burned inside of it. The Chimera fell inside, and Benjamin quickly closed the crevice. It was deep of course, so the Chimera couldn't break through the road again or something. It was officially damned to the Underworld.

As for the Nemean Lion, several people were working on it right now. Dmitri was summoning plants and vines to wrap around the feet of the lion, which would stop its running, but it didn't work, for the lion was too strong and simply broke through the vines.

At least it would be _sort of_ easier to fight the Nemean Lion now that the Chimera was gone. Now we could simply just focus on the one monster.

"How do we kill this freaking thing?" Ellie demanded. Olivia, being the daughter of Athena, of course, came up with a plan, even though I thought of it earlier,

"We have to shoot an arrow or throw a sword through its mouth! It's the only part of him that's not protected by its fur!"

What happened next was what scared me the most. Of course, we didn't really see much of him or whatever it was afterwards, but a voice bellowed the word "NO!" I waited for something or someone to come out, but nothing did. The voice came from a distance. Maybe it was just a mortal family and their father was very upset at his children or something. But even though it was coming from a distance, the bellow was loud and sounded ominous. Scarily, the voice of the bellow sounded somewhat similar to Ben, but more mature sounding.

Trying to forget about it, I looked around trying to find someone with a bow and arrow, but I couldn't, and I didn't think anyone else had one besides Dmitri, who was too enveloped in his magic with plants at the moment. Then, I suddenly remembered: Andrea had a bow and arrow! I looked around for her, but couldn't. Olivia told Dmitri to take out his bow and arrow.

It had an earthen construction. He notched an arrow very slowly, when all of us shouted simultaneously,

"Just shoot the arrow!" Maybe we shouldn't have done this, because we accidentally caused Dmitri to shoot and miss.

"You didn't bring any spare arrows?" Rosa questioned, worried.

"I did, but they're in my quiver, but you guys shouted and messed me up and─"

"Just try again!" I screamed. Dmitri flashed me one of his old-fashioned 'I'm going to kill you if you don't shut up' glares, and took an arrow out of his quiver. He positioned it carefully on the bowstring and notched it when suddenly; the Nemean Lion yelped in pain and fell to the ground. I assumed Dmitri shot the beast, so I said,

"Nice job, Dmitri!"

"I didn't shoot it," he said, which scared me. Here was another strange thing that happened today: first all of us hear someone gasp, then the lights turn on by themselves, we hear someone bellow and now, the Nemean Lion suddenly gets injured by something that wasn't us.

My first instinct: look at the direction the arrow was coming from. At first I expected it to be Andrea who shot the arrow and maybe it wasn't so weird after all, but I didn't see anyone in the darkness. I looked at Melanie.

"Can you brighten it up a bit?" She nodded. She waved her hand and an explosion of light burst from her fingers, making the area bright. I had about ten seconds before the light died down again. I tried looking around as quickly as possible, but still, I could see nothing.

The Nemean Lion began to roar again. All of us jumped back into action. Suddenly, it coughed up more blood. An arrow sprouted from its mouth. I quickly turned around to the direction the arrow had come. I saw a figure quickly hide behind the corner.

And I was _determined_ to get whatever it was.

I began to run towards and it and everyone started following me by running and calling 'Ethan! Stop! What are you doing?' But I didn't care about that at the moment. All I cared about was the fact that there was something going on that I wasn't sure about, and it was something more supernatural than knowing the Greek gods' existed─okay, maybe not that much, but I was incredibly curious.

I swiftly ran around the corner. I heard footsteps in front of me. I chased after whatever it was. I could feel its presence and see its shadow, but could also see the outline of its figure. It ran into the woods, and I followed it.

I ran and ran and ran after the mysterious person until finally; it faded into nothing, as if it were a ghost trying to help save me, but was ordered to return to the Underworld or something.

I hopelessly gave up and walked back to my group of friends.

I guess all of us were happy that the beast was dead, but what I was now focused on was the cleanup. How could we just leave a lion there in the middle of a road?

Benjamin did his trick with the crevice again. It opened beneath the Nemean Lion, swallowed it, and closed as quickly as it had opened.

We talked for a little bit, and then decided to continue our journey deeper into Connecticut, when suddenly, I froze.

"What?" Rosa asked.

Someone was missing. I counted nine people in all. I looked at everyone's faces and almost immediately understood who wasn't here with us. Hunter seemed to understand the situation, because he gasped and looked to the far left. Everyone followed his gaze.

We were looking at the dying body of Andrea Martin.

**A/N: Did you like it? Hate it? Tell me in a review! Here are the chapter seven questions:**

**How do you feel about Andrea's death?**

**Several strange things happened in this chapter. What do you think is going on here?**

**Who do you think the voice that bellowed "NO!" belonged to?**

**If you could be one of the demigods in this story, who would you pick?**


	8. Chapter Eight

**A/N: I technically could've uploaded this chapter last night, but I wanted to read it over and make sure it was perfect and all that. Also, before you read this chapter, I forgot to ask you a Chapter Seven question: How do you feel about Andrea's death? If you read the previous chapter before it was re-uploaded, then I'm talking to you. Answer that question before reading this chapter. Great! Now that you've done that, enjoy Chapter Eight!**

BEN WASN'T DEALING WELL WITH watching his girlfriend's death.

I tried putting myself into his shoes─I tried to imagine Rosa or Ellie dead, but I couldn't considering I knew that they weren't dead. But this was the real thing. Andrea was really dying.

There were deep cuts all over her, and she losing blood relatively quickly. Ben looked like he wanted to break down into tears. Andrea and Ben were both in pain together. Ben muttered words of encouragement to her, but I wasn't sure if that was helping or not.

"I-I'll miss you guys." Those were Andrea's last words before she never moved again.

Ben was now crying, which he didn't often let people see him do. In fact, he barely did it at all. Olivia seemed like she was trying to think of something in her head, a plan to help us reverse the death of Andrea. As far as I knew, the only demigod here who could control and manipulate death was Ben, but I don't think children of Hades could actually prevent one from dying.

Suddenly, Olivia's eyes lit up as if she had thought of something.

Olivia pulled out a strange looking watch─of course, it looked normal, but I had a feeling there was some sort of magical part about it. There was a tiny vial connected on the band of the watch. She took it off with ease, and it grew in her hand. She poured some of the liquid onto the watch, but it seeped through as if it weren't even there. The watch didn't even seem affected by the liquid.

"Here," Olivia said, handing the vial to Melanie, who was standing next to her, "drink this. Pass it around when you're done with it. Don't drink a whole lot of it." Melanie did as Olivia told her, and passed it to the person next to her, which was Dmitri. He drank some and passed it towards Ellie, who passed it to Rosa, and then to me, and so on.

The liquid itself didn't even taste like anything. It tasted almost like water to me, but even water had a taste. This didn't. I could feel it running in my mouth and down my throat but I couldn't exactly taste anything.

Ben took slow and steady sips. While he was crying, some of it missed his mouth due to the pain he was experiencing.

When everyone had taken a sip, Olivia took the vial and poured it on top of the watch again. There was no changing effect. It seeped through just like it had last time. Olivia tapped the watch several times─one, two, three, four, five I counted. Then, I gazed at the watch.

The minute hand reversed one second, as if this were normal. Every second, it seemed to get faster, but this was slowly. The hour hand began to move. Then I looked around us.

It was almost like time was reversing around us; I could see my own arms stretching out of me, so it looked like I had four arms, and then drinking the vial that Olivia had told us to drink from. Then, in reverse order, I passed the vial to Rosa. Then Rosa drank, and passed the vial to Ellie. This continued.

Cars I saw earlier were beginning to pass by in a reverse order on the streets. I saw myself, Ellie and the rest of the group running backwards to this one particular spot and vanishing behind the corner. I wasn't entirely sure how to describe it─imagine going backwards very, very fast in backwards motion. It was like someone had pressed rewind on the world. Blurs of shapes and colors moved passed me really quickly. It was like standing in a tornado, but I could see the entire group perfectly. The day began to get brighter. Shadows moved across the ground as the position of the sun changed ever so quickly.

This continued for about five more seconds when Olivia finally tapped the watch and everything began to go at a normal speed, this time in the normal order of time from front to back. She looked at the watch.

"It's 6:15," Olivia said. "Where were we at 6:15?" Everyone started looking at each other and mumbling when Rosa said,

"I think we were just arriving at the cement building when I was following the cat or─" Rosa wasn't able to finish when Olivia started running towards the direction we had com and we all followed her. We ran past where Andrea's body would've been, but it wasn't there.

"What are we doing?" I asked while running back to the cement building next to Olivia.

"You'll see," she said. "We just have to wait."

So we sat there for about five minutes until I heard voices. Olivia quickly stood and pushed us around the corner. I was tempted to look, but what I heard scared me. I heard Melanie's voice say,

"Rosa, would you just _let it go?_ You're allergic to cats! You shouldn't be trying to take it anyway!" The scary part was the voice wasn't coming from her lips. She looked just as confused as I was. Olivia tried to stop me, but the curiosity won over me. I looked around the corner and saw myself, Ellie, Rosa, the rest of the group walking on the other side of the building. Andrea was walking with us, still alive.

"What's going on?" I said a little bit too loudly. Olivia gasped, covered my mouth and pulled me around the corner we were standing behind.

"You have to be quiet," she told me.

"What was that?" A voice similar to Ellie's asked. Another voice, which I identified as Andrea's replied with,

"I don't know. Let's go see." I heard footsteps approaching.

"We're coming around the corner!" Olivia began to usher us into the tiny forest behind the building. I carefully looked behind the tree, but made sure I wasn't seen since Olivia was so cautious about it and telling us not to, and saw myself walk by. Me from the past looked at the tree, and I hid behind it, and I could hear my footsteps moving away.

"Come on," Olivia said, beginning to follow ourselves from the past.

As we quietly came behind the corner, I saw myself and the rest of the group follow the Nemean Lion, who before was a cat, inside the cement building. I wanted to say that they should leave before it turned into a monster, but I knew Olivia would kill me if I did, and when I walked into the building before, another me didn't just pop up and tell us that, which probably meant I should mess with that.

Olivia was about to walk in when she realized what we were doing. We followed her, and luckily all of us were following the cat so our backs were to the door. I turned the light on and suddenly realized what I had done. Melanie quietly snapped her fingers, and all of us became invisible. I assume that she could conceal her presence in the light. We all quietly stepped out.

I saw myself look out the door and then say,

"Come on guys, we're forgetting about our quest. We have to leave." I hid behind the corner, even though I was still invisible, and once we were all behind there, Melanie snapped her fingers again and we became visible.

"Well now we know how the light turned on," said Olivia, glaring at me.

"Shut up," I told her, "what are we doing anyway? What's that watch thing?" Olivia slipped the watch off of her wrist.

"It was originally an hourglass but it was changed to fit the modern time. It originally belonged to Kronos, who could control time. Zeus stole it from him, and gave it to Athena. Athena gave it to the counselor of my dormitory, Sophia. She gave it to me because she didn't want it anymore, I don't know why. She told me how to use it, and when Perseus found out, he said it was good that I now possessed it because I would need it. Now I understand why. It can do anything that involves time: it can bring you to the future, bring you to the past. It can make something around it become old or young, like making an old key look new again. It can even stop time. Just remember: we can't be seen. If one day you saw yourself walk into your house you would think it's the work of dark magic or something, and you'd end up killing your past or future self. It's happened to demigods before. Don't let yourself from the past see yourself as you are now."

"So what we… went back in time?" Ellie asked.

"Yes," said Olivia. "We've got to save Andrea from her death. And I've got a pretty good idea how to."

Olivia's plan was to basically take the past Andrea away from the Nemean Lion, explain everything to her and then make it seem like she shot the bow and arrow. Back when I was chasing that figure in the woods, it didn't look like Andrea, it looked like a male.

So we waited and waited until the Nemean Lion was about to slash Andrea with his paws, but before we could save her, the person who was suppose to grab her, Hunter, squealed like a little girl and ran away. It slashed Andrea to bits, causing Ben to cry a lot and Brianna to laugh when Hunter screeched.

"Dude!" I controlled my voice perfectly so I couldn't be heard by my past self. "You just let Andrea get double-killed!"

"I'm sorry! He scared me!"

"Olivia, is there any way we can wait and go back in time again?" Olivia slowly and sadly shook her head. Ben began to break down into tears again. Suddenly, Melanie began to run. Rosa whispered-screamed,

"What are you doing?" Melanie ran down to Andrea's cut body and dragged it up the hill. Andrea began shrieking.

"Melanie! I just saw you over there! How'd you get over here so fast and─" Dmitri and I covered her mouth with our hands.

"Andrea, listen to us. We're from the future. Olivia used a magical watch to go back in time." Olivia held forth her wrist revealing the magical item to the past Andrea.

"B-but why would you need to save me? The cuts aren't that bad." I almost laughed. If only right now she knew she would die. Suddenly, I felt the earth beginning to shake. Hunter and Brianna were using their powers, and Andrea was closer to death.

"We're saving you from death," Melanie said. She muttered something in Ancient Greek, and almost instantly, her wounds began to heal. Slowly but surely the blood began to leak back into her body in order to keep her consciousness; and the cuts began to close. They began shrinking into tiny white scars, and even those were beginning to fade. Andrea hugged Melanie.

"Did I really die?" All of us nodded our heads.

"Oh thank you!" In about five seconds, Andrea said 'Thank You' about a hundred times.

"Olivia!" She hugged Olivia and admired the watch that had saved her life. "If it weren't for you and your watch, I wouldn't be alive!" We all chuckled at her silliness and being so excited for not being dead, when suddenly, a voice roared.

"NO!" It rang and echoed loudly in my ears. My shadow disappeared. Rosa's shadow disappeared─_everyone's_ shadow disappeared. They all formed together and created a tall gloomy figure. He was dressed in dark robes and had dark black hair with brown eyes so dark they could've been black.

"You've stolen one of my victims! It is against the Ancient Laws!" Just saying that sentence made me know who was talking to us.

"Hades," I said, "you're Ben's father." Ben was looking at the god of the dead─from him he had gotten lots of his features. They shared the dark hair, dark eyes and pale skin. They both liked to wear dark clothing and had dominion over the dead. Looking at Hades and Ben right here, right now, Ben was like a mini-me of Hades.

The god of the Underworld waved his hand and white smoke gathered. A figure formed. It was a girl about our age, who was wearing the same exact clothes as… the ghostly figure was Andrea.

"I-is that me?" Hades nodded grimly.

"Why did I have to die?" Andrea said looking at the sky, as if yelling at the Fates.

"If it's truly your fate, you won't die, but if the Fates changed their minds about your life-line now that you've been, err, rescued, you'll be able to live. But it is also partly my choice. I'm not going to make my son a depressed mess. Therefore, if you choose it, you may stay alive." Andrea was nodding quickly, and Hades merely laughed.

"You've chosen a good girl, my fine fellow," Hades patted his son's back, and swiped his hand through the spirit of Andrea. It floated back into the body of the living her from the past. Hades began to walk away, but then suddenly turned to me,

"Oh, and young Ethan, I think now would be a good time to save yourself and you're friends," The god of the dead winked, and disappeared, restoring our shadows. I then suddenly knew what he meant. Without asking, I took Dmitri's bow and quiver full of arrows.

"Hey!" he shouted.

I ran towards the opposite end of the cement building, and silently prayed to Apollo and Artemis to just shoot the arrows correctly. At the Institute of Demigods, we learned quickly that I wasn't any good at archery. Apparently the twin archers, Apollo and Artemis heard my prayers, because when I shot the arrow, it went right into the mouth of the Nemean Lion. It yelped. I hid behind the corner and heard myself tell Dmitri nice job, but he replied,

"I didn't shoot it." I walked to the entrance of the forest and stayed hidden behind a bush since I knew that Melanie would brighten up the place and the past version of me would come looking for me. For ten seconds, the world got brighter, and then died down.

Knowing the Nemean Lion would begin to roar again and attack our friends, I quickly prayed to Apollo and Artemis again, and hopefully they would be nice and enough to hit my target just one more time and play along with fate, and they did. The arrow sprouted immediately from the neck of the Nemean Lion, and died.

But now I knew what happened next.

I hid behind the corner, even though I knew myself from the past made eye-contact with me. I did what I saw the figure before doing: I ran.

It was a weird feeling: getting chased by myself. But when you know that the Greek gods and monsters exist, nothing got much weirder than that. At one point, as I was running, I realized I couldn't see myself. I looked over at Benjamin Rich, who concealed my presence in the darkness. I grinned.

"Thanks," I told him. He pounded my fist. As we were walking back, I talked to him.

"So are you happy your girlfriend isn't like, well, dead?" This made him laugh, which was good. I didn't want to put the image of dead Andrea in his head. He said,

"Yeah; I'm happy my dad let Andrea free."

When we finally got back to the group after finding our way back, Olivia was talking to Andrea from the past. She was saying,

"You should go back with us from the past, we're gonna start worrying about you." Andrea smiled, waved goodbye, and walked back down the hill and started talking the group that used to be us. It was the one part of the past thirty minutes that I didn't recognize, which made me feel good. All of the other parts were like a disk with a scratch and making one part in a film go on replay.

I was happy that Andrea was no longer dead. She was one of the probably few demigods who had escaped death.

Headmaster Orpheus came close to saving his wife, but didn't. Benjamin was lucky to have Hades as his father, who would always be willing to make exceptions for his son.

We walked down the hill as all of us left. I was very tired, seeing as I was an hour behind on sleep since it was spent on going to the past. I was glad that I now knew why the strange things were happening and who was causing them to happen.

It was Olivia who gasped loudly.

It was me who turned on the lights.

It was Hades who bellowed the word "NO!"

And finally, it was me who saved us all from the Nemean Lion.

Olivia took out the watch she'd used to save Andrea─I had decided to call it the Warping Watch─and took the vial of the tasteless liquid off the band.

The one part that didn't make sense to me was the fact that if everything else fit together, like Olivia gasping and Hades bellowing, why did Andrea die? Wouldn't the future versions of us had saved her? That's the question of mine that would probably never be answered.

Knowing the routine, Olivia poured the liquid on the watch, and passed it around for us to drink. Afterwards, she poured it on the watch and tapped it five times. My background became a blur of shapes and colors.

**A/N: Did you like the idea of it? Hate it? Too much like Harry Potter? Tell me in a review!**

**ANSWER THESE CHAPTER EIGHT QUESTIONS!:  
**

_**How did**_** you feel about Andrea's death?**

**Do you think it was smart of Olivia to use the 'Warping Watch'?**

**Was there any other methods you could use to save Andrea?**


	9. Chapter Nine

**A/N: Happy 2011! As a gift, I've decided to give you a new chapter! If you don't wanna read the beginning of the chapter over again, you can skip it. Just try finding the part where you left off from last chapter's sneak peek. Here's chapter nine!**

I SUDDENLY FELT GROUND BENEATH my feet.

I looked around at my surroundings: we were in the same location before where Olivia had first taken out the Warping Watch. Andrea was already there waiting for us.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," I replied.

"How much further is south Connecticut?" Melanie asked. Olivia pulled out the map and looked at it. She said,

"Only about thirty minutes down the road. When we get there, we'll have to find an Inn or something."

"Yeah," Hunter agreed.

We began heading the direction the map told us to go. According to it, to get to south Connecticut, we had to travel east of our current location. We walked down a long, winding road for about thirty minutes, like Olivia had said, and we quickly found an Inn to get into. The problem was, we weren't sure how to get in.

"Can't we just use Andrea's money and Rosa's sweet-talking?" I asked.

"I have to make more money," said Andrea. "Does anyone have paper, scissors and markers, pens or pencils?"

"You didn't bring any? Didn't you suspect we'd run out of money at some point?"

"Not really, knowing me." Brianna fished around in the backpack she had brought with her.

"Here," she said, handing Andrea a notebook and pencil Brianna had brought along, "I don't have scissors, so you'll have to rip up the paper yourself."

We sat there while Andrea made her fake money. We had plenty of drachmas, but we couldn't use that to get into an Inn. I was just glad we found one in the first place─I was sure that at one point we'd run out of luck, and I had a funny feeling that would be soon.

Andrea finished making the fake money soon enough, and made it appear real to mortal eyes using her powers. We walked into the Inn. It was a Bed and Breakfast. We walked up to the front counter, where two women were standing.

One of them wore a business suit and had short, dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had a few wrinkles on her skin, and her lips were a bright, cherry red. The woman standing next to her had long, red hair, which surprisingly wasn't frizzy. She didn't have freckles, either, which surprised me. I hadn't noticed until now, but every red-head I had ever seen had freckles and frizzy hair, but this woman didn't. Maybe she dyed it.

"We'd like to check in please," Dmitri stated. The woman with red hair slowly turned to the woman with dirty blonde hair and began talking to her in sign language. When she was done, the woman with dirty blonde hair showed a surprised face.

"But─Miss, they're supposed to have a form signed, or somebody over the age of eighteen is supposed to be supervising, and─" The red-head began using sign language again, and the woman in the business suit sighed. I read both of their nametags: the woman talking in sign language was named Evelyn. The woman Evelyn was talking to was named Marie.

"Fine," said Marie. We went through all of the form signing. I had assumed that the woman with red-hair was mute, considering she was only talking in sign language. She didn't seem to be able to say anything.

Finally, when all the papers were signed, Marie gave us our room keys. We were the only ones in the place, except for a married couple and their three children.

We did the same room arrangements as last time, though we mostly all hung out in one room, Melanie's room, for a while until we finally went to bed.

When I woke up, only Melanie was up as well. I began to talk to her, but we were both really bored, considering Melanie and I never really had much of independent conversations unless some of our other friends were there as well. I guess it would make sense that she was up first, considering she was already a morning person, which would explain why it makes sense that her father is the god of sunlight, which only comes in the morning and afternoon time.

Soon enough, Olivia and Rosa began to awake. Before Olivia could grab it, I looked at the list of progression: we were supposed to get to some train station in New Jersey by the end of the day. Luckily, Andrea still was able to make money in seconds─after reading books and watching movies about teenagers who are demigods, like Percy Jackson, or wizards, like Harry Potter, quests looked so difficult. I mean, they still were, with having to fight monsters and what not. But I was glad we had a good mixture of every god on our side─we had demigod children of Poseidon, Aphrodite, Apollo, Hades, Hermes, Demeter, Athena and of course, Zeus on our side. I don't know how it could get much better than that.

"Where do we have to get to by the end of today?" Rosa wondered, while her voice was groggy having just woken from her sleep.

"Some train station in New Jersey," I told her. She slowly nodded.

Several hours passed, and finally all of us were awake. We had finished breakfast, and we didn't want to leave quite yet, considering some people, like Ben and Andrea, had practically just woken up.

We had decided to take a walk in the courtyard of the Bed and Breakfast, considering Dmitri thought it would help all of us wake up. He had a strange power, which basically enabled him to make plants give people the ability to wake up better or something like that. But all of us were really tired, so we agreed with his plan.

Like expected, there were lots of plants outside, which was what would help Dmitri work his magic with plants anyway.

We all walked outside. The courtyard had beautiful green grass, a small stream with a tiny bridge going over it, and a pavement area for people to walk on. There was an average sized gazebo, which was possibly used for weddings.

As we walked outside, I actually did feel myself wakening up a bit. I was still a little bit tired when I walked out, but my senses were beginning to awaken, just as Dmitri was causing to do.

Overall, the walk in the courtyard was peaceful, like nothing could make it an unpleasant moment. We were talking and laughing, despite being on a quest to south Colorado and having to fight monsters. I felt like this might be the only peaceful place we would see on our quest─and even that wasn't meant to last.

We were walking on the cement pavement. We walked over the tiny bridge, and dipped our hands in the water, birds chirping softly. What could go wrong with this morning?

I quickly turned around to find Evelyn standing behind us. Everyone followed my gaze.

"Hello," I told her, forgetting she didn't seem to be able to speak. She began to talk in sign language again, probably hoping we understood it.

Rosa stepped forward, and began making gestures with her hands. How could I not have known that my girlfriend could speak in sign language? I only knew the alphabet in that language, but nothing else.

Then again, Rosa easily adapted to speaking all languages. In Spanish class, she always seemed to know the right answers, how to say things correctly, et cetera. Despite taking Spanish classes, and the fact that the French teacher could speak little Spanish, Rosa always greeted Mrs. DeGarmo, the French teacher, in the language the teacher was accustomed to. I made a mental note to ask Rosa later about how she knew the languages so well.

"How are you this morning?" I asked the woman, knowing she wasn't deaf at least. Instead of speaking sign language, she held her right thumb up as if to say she was having a positive, good morning.

"Good," I said.

"Good," Evelyn replied. Wait… what?

"You can talk," I noticed. "How come you speak in mostly sign language?" I asked.

"Mostly sign language," Evelyn repeated.

"Yes," I said, "how come you speak that if you can talk in English?" She replied,

"In English," I was starting to get mad. Was this woman just trying to annoy me, or was this some sort of problem with her?

"Um, miss, could you please my brother's question?" Ellie somewhat demanded. Evelyn turned to her.

Evelyn repeated Ellie's last three words. I noticed my voice getting softer and softer every time I spoke, and Evelyn's voice getting louder. Suddenly, Olivia shrieked.

"What?" I asked angrily.

"E-Echo! You're Echo!" Evelyn, or Echo as Olivia called her, cackled.

"Continue talking… it gives me the ability to talk… sucking out your voices… speak!" I tried remembering the myth about Echo and Narcissus. It wasn't really one of my favorites, because of the depressing ending. I hate depressing endings.

Basically, Echo loved to tell stories, sing songs and gossip. Zeus would often visit the mountains and visit the nymphs, when Hera eventually became suspicious.

Zeus, _my father_, was known for his many love affairs. Whenever Hera looked for Zeus on the mountain, Echo would let Zeus─do his thing, so to speak, by distracting Hera with fascinating stories and tales. Eventually, Hera discovered the trickery, and cursed Echo to only repeat the last words of those of who have spoken.

Later, she met a boy named Narcissus, who got lost in the woods. Echo liked him very much, and when Narcissus tried asking for directions out of the woods, she could only repeat the last words Narcissus said to her. Eventually, he left her grieving until she died.

Narcissus later came to a riverbank and noticed a reflection in the water─his _own_, reflection. He thought it was a beautiful water nymph, and waited and waited; asking for her to come out, while Echo repeated the words, so Narcissus thought the so-called nymph was talking to him.

He promised himself he wouldn't do anything until the water nymph came out. He didn't sleep, he didn't eat, and he didn't look away from the river. Eventually, he died, and was transformed into the Narcissus flower. That is supposedly why the Narcissus flower always is drooping when found by a riverbank─it's looking at the beautiful water nymph, waiting for it to come out.

But what I wondered was how Echo came back to Earth. Sure, monsters reform after a thousand years just as the gods do, but Echo was never depicted as a monster─just a sweet mountain nymph that was cursed by the queen of the gods.

I was about to ask her, when I realized how she was able to talk. First of all, she could Echo, but she also said something about sucking out our voices. It reminded me of the Little Mermaid, when Ursula stole Ariel's singing voice.

Suddenly, I heard Olivia's voice in my head.

_Don't freak out,_ she said, _this is just one of my powers. I'm talking to all of you mentally. Don't speak at all. We're gonna have to communicate telepathically. That's another one of my powers_─_I can make people have the ability to read each other's minds… I think now would be a good time to run out of hearing distance._

As soon as she said that it would be a good time to run, I followed her orders and ran. I wasn't sure where to run in this courtyard, so I ran into the forest behind the Inn. Unfortunately, some people followed me, and Echo followed after them.

_Great_, I said to the people following me, telepathically of course, _now what?_

_ I don't know, _Rosa said. _Just don't talk._

"Come on," Echo pleaded, "giving up your voice isn't all that bad. Some people are naturally born with that defect!" I still didn't know how she was talking if all she was suppose to do was Echo.

As if reading my thoughts, Echo said,

"Ethan, when I died, the god Hades gave me the choice to be born again as a monster. I don't know why he chose to give me that option, but he did, and I was one-hundred-percent willing to do so, ready for revenge on both Narcissus and Hera."

I was barely listening to the story, but I got the idea of it. All of us were trying to gain a distance from Echo, so if we talked she couldn't suck out our voices.

_That way,_ Dmitri mentally said, pointing to a clearing in the forest. I followed where his hand was pointing and ran over there. I could hear Echo's footsteps approaching. My heart began pounding, and I mentally gasped. Echo casually glanced at our location, but then began to head back to the courtyard.

_Is she blind?_ I joked telepathically.

_Look down,_ Dmitri told me, and I obeyed. My body wasn't there. Dmitri yet again used nature to prevent being seen, hiding us from Echo, like most of my friends could do. I was beginning to get jealous. Could I use the sky to conceal my presence or something? I told myself to forget about it, considering I was the son of the king god in Greek mythology.

We left the forest clearing, and began to head back to the courtyard. Down there, Ben, Olivia, Hunter, Ellie and Andrea were fighting Echo, not even talking at all. That was when Rosa seemed to get an idea.

"Don't you miss Narcissus?" she said with false sympathy. Echo suddenly froze and looked at Rosa.

"Why, yes! I mean, I miss him so much! I couldn't even talk to him and─wait a second. I know what you're trying to do! Don't you dare, daughter of Aphrodite, try using your powers on me!"

"Oh, but I feel incredibly bad for you." Rosa's voice had a lot of emotion and power in it. It was like she was enchanting Echo by simply just talking to her. If this was a power of a daughter of Aphrodite, charming people into doing things or hypnotizing people, I was going to come up with a name for it─I _always_ come up with a name for something that's nameless.

"Well, yes, I do miss him. Now, we're done here. I must now suck the voice out of your soul." Rosa titled her head, smiled and began talking again.

"It would've been lovely if you ended up together. Get married, have a nice house, maybe have a couple of children. You guys would've been the most interesting couple there was!"

Echo looked like she was trying to imagine all that stuff being true, falling under Rosa's spell.

"I-It _would've_ been lovely, I have to agree. B-but─" Rosa interrupted Echo's thought once again. Even I was feeling light-headed, like I wanted to impress her for some reason or something like that.

"If only you could see him once again," Rosa sighed. Echo looked up into the sky dreamily again. Rosa turned to her right, and yelped.

"Oh, look!" She said pointing next to herself. "It's Narcissus!" Echo gasped, and ran to Rosa's side. For me, it looked like she was hugging the air, but it looked as if there really were Narcissus she were hugging─what I mean is, when you hug the air, typically your arms don't exactly get a grasp of anything. But it looked like she was really holding an invisible person.

"Come on, Narcissus." Echo said, releasing herself from Narcissus' hug and holding her hand out as if expecting him to take it. She began having a conversation with the invisible person, but she would take breaks in between her sentences, as if she really could hear him replying. They began walking off, when Olivia began to creep up on Echo. Olivia plunged her dagger into Echo's back, and she shrieked and fell.

"How'd you do that?" Melanie demanded.

"Figured out how to do it on the day before we left," Rosa said. "In her head, Narcissus really appeared to be there. Basically, I can make the dead loved ones of others appear to be here on Earth." I guess that would _sort of_ make sense, though I figured Ben was the only person here that could control the dead. Speaking of powers…

"Rose, before I forget," she quickly looked at me.

"Yes?" She asked.

"How can you speak in so many different languages so fluently?"

"I always thought I was just good at understanding languages. But shortly after coming here, I realized that Aphrodite considers love to be spoken in all languages, and therefore, all of her demigod children can speak every language they know of." That made more sense.

"Crap!" Andrea gasped suddenly.

"What?" some of us asked in unison─Brianna, Ellie and I.

"We still have to get to that train station in New Jersey!" Andrea reminded us. I hit my hand to my head in a manner of _I completely forgot!_

"It's already 10:09," Olivia said, looking at her watch. "What's the quickest type of transportation we have?"

"I don't know," Ellie said. "I don't understand why we need a 'list of progression' anyway."

"We'll travel as much as we can," I said to nobody in particular. "If we're a little bit behind, what's wrong with that? At some point, we'll probably be setting up a camp and stuff anyway. We shouldn't be arguing right now anyway. Come on, let's leave."

**A/N: Like it? Hate it? Tell me! Please review, or be forced to not have an update in a long time! MWAHAHAHA. I'm sorry, but if you'll notice, I often update more quickly when I get reviews. Continue this, and there might be daily updates! Now, answer these Chapter Nine Questions!**

**Did you know Echo's identity before she was revealed? (Don't answer this one, Taylor xD)**

**If so, what clues gave her away?**

**Do you think that they'll make it to the train station by the end of tonight?**

**What do **_**you**_** think is so important about the list of progression?**


	10. Chapter Ten

**A/N: Here you go, Chapter Ten! I'm just two chapters away from having one more chapter than Anthony Jackson had! I'm really hoping I'll finish the series, or at least this one book. Anyway, this chapter is a little bit inappropriate, but not too much, I hope. Anyways, please enjoy!**

HOURS PASSED BY WHEN WE finally decided to take a break.

We were definitely in New Jersey by then. (Don't ask how we arrived so quickly. It's a _long _story.) I knew we had to be somewhat near the train station. I had assumed it would only be an hour, maybe if we're lucky, forty five minutes from the location we were sitting at.

It was sunset, and we decided to set up camp. We found a clearing in a wooded area, so we decided that would be a good place to set it up. Dmitri tried making us tents out of nature, but the first time he tried, the fire burned it down.

"It's okay," I told him. "We'll try making the tents ourselves. Why don't you try cooking dinner?" I asked him. Dmitri was always good at cooking. Maybe as a child of Demeter he was naturally good at whipping up food. I didn't know.

What surprised me was how quickly this was all happening. In movies and books, most of the times, the authors make battles look like they take forever, or sometimes they do, while they build up to the moment of telling the main character 'You're a wizard!' 'You're a demigod!' 'You're the child of two of the greatest superheroes on the planet!'

But in reality, it felt a lot different. You saw how quickly we had to adapt to learning that Greek mythology and monsters were real. At the beginning of summer, Hunter and his sister had been attacked by a manticore. Several weeks later, we were attacked by a hellhound, as Perseus called it. The next day, we were sent to a school for demigods. It was changing very, very fast─almost faster than I wanted it to.

I was also told by the headmasters, in our two weeks of training that demigods were hard to find at schools, normally. Yet somehow, a bunch of gods seemed to fall in love with mortals towards the same time of year in the same town. They also found it interesting how we demigods banded together in school as friends. I guess the reason we were all friends was because of the similarities between us all─most of us only had half of our parentage, and weird things always happened to us.

The tents were set up, and Dmitri was serving us the food he made─bacon, chicken, cheese, and different types of food which could be made naturally. I didn't know where he got the ingredients to make it, if whether or not he killed animals to give us this food, but I was so hungry, I didn't ask him and instantly dug in.

Of course, we brought pans and stuff so we could cook, and we brought bowls and plates too. We keep them in a backpack, with some other foods, like cereal, but nobody really wanted to eat cereal the entire quest─only Dmitri and his immortal mother would do that.

Typically, Dmitri's food is always good, so I wasn't afraid that it might be bad or anything.

We were breaking camp when the stars were starting to come out, and I noticed Andrea wasn't really doing anything. I sat down next to her. The fire had died down, but there were still embers flying through the air, the smell of the fire still there as if it never died.

"Hey," I said. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," she replied. "I'm waiting for our leave."

There was a silence, but I broke it.

"You know, someone's probably going to accuse us of robbing a bank at one point if we don't come up with an explanation for all the money we're using for the quest."

"We could just say we're runaways, but as for the money, I could make a fake lottery ticket or something, or maybe a check with a rich person's name on it."

"I suggest you come up with something soon. We're probably gonna have to get on the train, remember?"

She didn't say anything for a while.

"Brianna," Andrea called. Brianna quickly turned, and stopped what she was doing. Andrea asked,

"Can I have another piece of notebook paper, and a pencil?" Brianna nodded, and pulled the things Andrea asked for out of her backpack. I observed Andrea's drawings. It was good, maybe a little improvement on the handwriting, but I could understand it─she was drawing a lottery ticket _and_ a check with a rich person's name on it. I laughed at which name she wrote.

"Rosa's dad? Seriously?" I chuckled.

"Sorry," Andrea said sarcastically, not sounding very ashamed. "I don't have a computer to look up a rich person at the moment." I rolled my eyes, wondering if Rosa's dad would suddenly lose the amount of money as soon as she made the check look real to mortal eyes.

By the time we got to the train station─the Transit station or something like that, I understood we were supposed to get on the train. The furthest we could afford was Texas. We were lucky I suggested Andrea make excuses for the money we were getting, because one of guys at the train station actually _had_ accused us of robbing a bank. We showed him the lottery ticket, and he let us aboard, still looking at us strangely.

We found a bunch of empty seats at the back of the train. It was sort of a fancy train. It had two levels, and the seats had tables in between them, for food and laptops and reading magazines and stuff like that.

I guess one of the reasons they had tables, also, was because they surprisingly served food on the train. There wasn't a huge selection, but at least there was food all of us liked.

We had to separate into groups, changing pretty much every few hours on the train while we were there. In the beginning of the day, during breakfast time until Lunch, I sat with Melanie, Ben, Andrea, Ellie and Rosa. Then, at lunchtime, I sat with Brianna, Hunter, Ellie, Rosa and Ben. Finally, at dinnertime, I sat with Andrea, Melanie, Ellie, Hunter and Rosa. All in all, Rosa was always in my group, as well as Ellie.

We spent a three days on the train before it reached another station in Orlando, Florida. It was going to be a few hours before the train left again, so we decided to explore a little bit. We were close to Disney world. None of us had been there, except Rose, since her dad had to film movies there sometimes, and other times he just brought up the money to take her. In a way, we all sort of wanted to go, but there were three problems.

One, we were on a quest.

Two, we wouldn't be able to get in, even if we attempted.

Three, we would probably get too absorbed in fun that we'd end up missing the train ride.

Besides, we didn't even really need to go to Disney world. I'll admit though, it was pretty boring after the first half hour. There didn't appear to be many sites in Orlando besides Disney world. We just sort of walked around, looking at all of the beaches and people having fun─while we were teenage kids who looked like we just got out of a fight with a Polar bear, with dirty faces and ripped up clothes. Well, sort of.

We ate at a restaurant to get some good food into our stomachs. Not that the train food was bad, but the chef could improve his cooking. Pretty soon, we got back onto the train.

It was only then that I blacked out.

The world faded into existence before my eyes. I was lying down on a beautiful beach with sand that I couldn't describe. It wasn't necessarily a white-sand beach, but it wasn't colored like normal sand, either. A clear, blue ocean spread out in front of us. The mighty sky that my father rules was cloudless. It seemed like a perfect place.

Out in the water, I saw a woman swimming. She had beautiful long hair and perfect blue eyes that matched the ocean water and sky completely. I wish I could tell you what she looked like, but her appearance kept on changing. At first, she looked like Rosa with her brown colored hair and color changing eyes. Then, it appeared as though she had golden hair and brown eyes, looking almost like a girl I had a crush on in second grade named Sabrina Smith.

She began swimming towards the surface. Unfortunately, it was only when she stepped out of the water that I realized she was swimming nude.

I quickly looked away to prevent from staring and looking like a pervert.

"I've changed," the woman said after a few seconds, and I knew she had to be a goddess. I turned back, and she was wearing a beautiful, white sleeveless Greek dress. She now wore a necklace that was made of seashells and different colored jewels. Her eyes were blue and her hair was brown, making her look like the older version of Rosa once again. A blood red rose was tucked into her hair, which cascaded down her back beautifully.

"Where are we?" I asked. "And who are you?"

"You're in Paphos, Cyprus, young demigods. This is my legendary birthplace. I was just taking my yearly swim." I tried remembering stories of goddesses being born from the sea. It suddenly clicked into place. No wonder her physical appearance changed before my eyes. It was getting closest to my ideal image of beauty. I had always thought of Rosa as beautiful.

I tried speaking, but looking at this woman, I couldn't. She was too beautiful for me to form my own sentences, even remember my own name. I looked around to see who else was here. I had expected all of my friends to be present, but it was only Rosa and I. Rosa seemed comfortable looking at the woman, as if her beauty didn't bother her. Rosa looked pissed at me for some reason. Maybe I was drooling. To prevent making her angry, I tried remembering my name, how to form sentences. All I had to do was look at something else. I could look at her a little bit, but not much until I got used to her.

"You're Aphrodite," I said, looking back and forth between her and Rosa. Then I looked at Aphrodite's so-called legendary birthplace. If it were possible for demigods to be born from the sea, I wouldn't mind being born here. But Greece or Mount Olympus might've been my first choice, despite never being to either of those places.

There was a silence.

"So you take yearly swims here?" Rosa finally asked.

"Of course! Today is my birthday, as a matter of fact."

"Um," I said. "Happy birthday, I guess." The love goddess winked, and I felt ready to faint. Rosa's nostrils fumed with jealousy.

"So… did you really rise from the sea and ride a seashell to the surface?" Aphrodite chuckled.

"Yes, I did rise from the sea. However, I did not ride a shell, thank you very much. But thinking back on it, I did like that painting that artist made. Riding a shell actually seems sort of fun…" She drifted off, but began talking again.

"Anyways, I'm here to talk to you guys. Let's leave this beach. I have shopping to do."

The scene shifted. Now, we were standing in a store that had designer clothing, made for a goddess. I tried stepping out of the way whenever someone came in front of me, and Rosa did the same, but apparently it didn't matter. As if we weren't here, the people passed right through us, not sensing our presence at all. The same thing happened to Aphrodite.

She gazed at a rack of clothing.

"Mom?" Rosa asked.

"Huh? Oh─right, well, anyways." Aphrodite put the clothes she had picked out back on the rack.

"Are you going to talk to us about our relationship or something?" I wondered, hoping she would say that she wasn't.

"No, Ethan." The goddess told me. "I have only come for a short chat. We will not be able to speak long before I must return to Olympus. As you know, there is a threat in Colorado."

"Yeah, do you know what it is? Could you tell us?" The goddess of beauty shook her head.

"Unfortunately, I cannot. However, I will give you something to help." Aphrodite held out her palm. A sparkling, glowing orb which changed colors floated in her hand.

"When you think it is time," Aphrodite said, "you can use this to transport yourself back to the Institute of Demigods." I only realized then that I was holding my backpack. The sparkling orb floated inside.

"How do I use it?" I asked the goddess.

"You simply throw it in the air," she said. "It'll then transport you and your friends back."

"Um… thanks," I replied. She smiled.

"Let's go. There's nothing good here." Aphrodite waved her hand, and I felt like the world was spinning. When it finished, we were in a different clothing store, except this one had purses and makeup as well.

"Aphro─" Rosa began. "Mom," she corrected herself.

"Yes, my darling?"

"How come you, your children, me─are looked down upon?"

"Ah," Aphrodite murmured, "now that, I do not know. Most of my demigod daughters are dismissed as conceited, shallow, or a slut. Most of my demigod sons are considered perverts or the kind of boy that would break every girl's heart. I am the daughter of Ouranos. Strangely, I am more powerful than the Olympians. I'm on par strength with the titans, like Kronos and Rhea, yet people consider me and my children powerless, and are ungrateful. I don't know why, but I have plans for what their love life will end up like. Rosa, you started that way. You didn't seem to be very proud of my titling of you."

"Yes, mother," Rosa said, looking down. "I apologize. I truly love you. I just─I just wasn't expecting you to be my mother. I never thought of myself as beautiful or, or─"

"Most of my other daughters felt that way too, my daughter. Most of my children are more powerful than most demigods. Even love can make the gods come to their knees. It is mostly me, Hera and Fate who chose how your love life will end up like. If I make your love strong enough and Hera allows marriage, that is how that ends up. Fate chooses the person you end up with."

"But─" Rosa began, but her mother cut her off.

"How many times has Ethan called you beautiful, Rose?" Rosa looked down. I glared at her. I've called her beautiful many times, but she's never agreed. Occasionally, she would accept a 'you're pretty' from Melanie and Ellie and all of them, but never a 'you're beautiful' from me.

"A lot of times," Rosa mumbled, so quiet I almost didn't catch it. "But still, why are we looked down upon, even if you are one of the most powerful Olympians?"

"Most of my children are described as shallow or perverted or slutty, like I said. However, sometimes even I can be that way. Just look at me. Five minutes ago, I was swimming naked in a public beach, revealing myself inappropriately to my daughter's boyfriend."

My cheeks burned in embarrassment at the memory of a nude Aphrodite.

"Rosa, I just want you to know─most people will call a stereotypical son or daughter of Aphrodite a slut or a pervert, but we know that we aren't. That's the way we avoid them. We know who our true friends are. For instance, I'm sure Ethan would beat up anyone who insulted you, my daughter. _Right, Ethan?"___Aphrodite glared at me as if she wanted me to agree, but she didn't need to do that. I would've done it anyway.

"Right," I told Rosa.

"Some of my children are sluts and perverts, because like I said, I can be one too. That's where they naturally get it from. But you and Isabel, you guys are most like me. Even if I'm a goddess and always changing, I'm not always one to care for my looks and physical appearance, which seems to change a lot. I can battle quite fiercely, and drive people to insanity because of love."

I remembered Isabel Porter, the daughter of Aphrodite and the counselor for her dorm. She was a lot like Rosa, and according to her mother, they were one of her few children that were more like her. Someone had shouted that Isabel wasn't worth Aphrodite or something like that. I wondered what was going on back at the Institute right now.

"Anyways, I must be going. I have already expressed what I needed to tell you. Have fun on your quest!" Aphrodite said seductively. I blushed, and Rosa elbowed me in the gut.

"That's my mom, _remember?"_ She said.

"Huh?" I sounded like an idiot. "Yeah."

I could tell Aphrodite was about to disappear, but Rosa stopped her.

"Mom, wait! I have a question!" The love goddess giggled.

"Yes, my daughter?"

"This isn't meant to offend you or anything like that, but─"

"I can assure you," Aphrodite said, "I would never be offended by what my child said or asked of me."

"Well…" Rosa said. "I'm just wondering… is it really true that you're basically made of some dude's… well, yeah?"

"The P word," Aphrodite suggested. "The G word, the T word, call it whatever you like." I glared at Rosa. That was a stupid question to ask her mother. Who does that? It's like when kids ask their parents where babies come from.

"Yeah," said Rosa. "Is it true that you're made of Ouranos' 'the P word'?" Aphrodite chuckled and almost forgot to answer Rosa's question.

"Technically, yes. Most parents tell their kids that Ouranos' body created sea foam after being thrown into the sea─his _entire_ body, not just that one part. They later tell them the truth when they are old enough to take it seriously and understand. But yes, I am made of Ouranos'… you get the point. The much more inappropriate story is the true one. Authors and parents try keeping fans and kids minds pure or something like that. Either way, I must be going." The goddess waved goodbye. We waved back. I still couldn't believe Rosa would ask a question like that.

This was a weird and _very_ inappropriate dream: in the beginning, I see an older, nude version of Rosa, A.K.A. Aphrodite stepping out of the water, and later, Rosa asks if her mother is really made of 'The P word' as Aphrodite called it. I wondered if that was one of the reasons she was the goddess of love, beauty, sexuality…

Aphrodite disappeared in a flash of pink-colored light, leaving nothing but the smell of roses, chocolate and perfume in the air, the smell of romance, I guess. A necklace was left on the floor. I picked it up.

"I guess we'll get this back to her later," I told Rosa and she nodded. Suddenly, I looked around frantically. Rosa did the same.

"Wait! Mother, how are we supposed to get out of here?" The light began to dim, and the dream faded to black.

When I began to see light above me, I also began to hear Hunter's voice.

"─elanie, I think you might have to heal them."

"But they're breathing, see?" Andrea countered.

"Ugh," Ben groaned. "If only we had one of the Hypnos kids here."

I sat up quickly. My friends were carefully looking over both Rosa and I. Rosa was sitting on the other side of the booth, with half of my other friends looking at her.

"W-What happened?" I asked.

"You blacked out," Ellie informed me. "We've been trying to awake you for ten minutes now."

"We were getting worried," said Dmitri. Rosa's eyes began to flutter open on the other side of the booth.

Olivia explained to Rosa about both of us blacking out.

"Ethan," Rosa called to my attention. "Did you dream the same thing as me?"

"Depends. Did you dream about your mom?" I asked. Rosa nodded.

"Then we had the same dream." I told her.

"Wait," Hunter said, looking around as if to make sure everything stopped. "You guys had the same dream?" Rosa and I nodded.

"What happened?" Melanie asked.

Rosa and I told them about the dream in bits and pieces. I left out the part of her being naked, but I did say that she came out of the ocean and that it was her apparent birthday. I told them about the orb, and showed them it. Brianna jokingly cooed over the colors the orb changed─pink, blue, green, yellow. Rosa told them about asking her mother if she was really made of Ouranos'… you know… and they laughed.

Time quickly passed by, and I realized it was sunset. I barely remember what happened that night. What the good thing was, we were all friends on this quest. We've known each other for years, and we always had someone to turn to. We would talk and laugh on the quest, despite the fact that some of us might die─it's already happened. We're just lucky Olivia has the Warping Watch.

It was getting late, and we all decided to go to bed. According to the train driver, we would be arriving in Texas tomorrow afternoon.

I closed my eyes and gently fell asleep.

**A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter was a little bit more rated M. I was dared to do the whole thing where Rosa asks if her mother is really made of some dude's balls xD. Anyway, answer the Chapter Ten questions:**

**What do you think will happen tomorrow? They'll meet another god, run into a monster? Tell me!**

**Did you know Aphrodite's identity before she was revealed? If so, what clues gave her away?**

**What do you think is so special about the necklace Ethan found, taking Aphrodite's place after she disappeared?**


	11. Chapter Eleven

**A/N: NEW CHAPTER TO THE RESCUE! :D. Well anyways, here is a new chapter. The book is coming to a close, despite the fact there is only eleven chapters so far! One more chapter, and this will be the longest story I've ever written on FanFiction, because Anthony Jackson was only eleven chapters long! Remember, that contest is drawing to a close… well, anyways, here's Chapter Eleven:**

MY EYELIDS FELT HEAVY, BUT I managed to open them.

Fields of wheat raced by as the train rode next to it, the sun shining greatly. I would've woken up Dmitri, since his mother controls wheat, not only, but he also loves the smell and sight of it. But he was sleeping, so I figured I'd let him rest.

I looked around to see if anybody else was awake; only Brianna. She was sitting in a completely different table with seats at it, diagonally down from me, and luckily I was on the edge of my seat, so I didn't wake anybody up trying to get over to her.

I walked over to her seat and looked at her drawing. She appeared to be drawing a Japanese cartoon, anime, and I guess it was rather good. It was a cat and girl hybrid type thing. I sat across from her.

Brianna looked up and smiled. "Hey."

"Whatcha drawing…?" She held up her notebook.

"It's good," I told her. She said thanks. There was a silence, but I destroyed it.

"So…how do you like your siblings?" Brianna sighed, but said,

"They're nice, and they have all the same hobbies as me… it's just… well, I don't know how to explain it. I definitely like them, since their siblings and all."

Slowly, people began waking up. We ate breakfast, talked about the Institute of Demigods, our powers, what monsters we think we might run into, and somehow, we got into the subject of favorite food, when the train came to a halt, and we were finally in Texas.

According to Andrea, some of her relatives lived down here in the south. She probably would've suggested we'd stay in the house of one of her uncle's or aunts, but that would put them too in danger.

Using fake money Andrea made, we went to a book-store and bought Andrea her own notebook of paper, but only because Brianna was starting to get mad that she had to give up her own paper in her notebook. Not to offend her or anything, but she needed to remember the importance of our quest.

As we were leaving the store, a female voice called,

"Melanie?" All of us quickly turned. Melanie gasped.

"Mom?" Melanie asked bewildered. Melanie ran over to the source where the voice was coming from. It was coming from a book table, where Melanie's mom, Jacqueline Green was signing books for her latest book in her series about faeries and wizards. Melanie pushed through the crowd, and hugged her mom over the table. Melanie's mother stood up, walked on the other side of the table, and said,

"This is my daughter, everyone," Everyone casually smiled as if to say: _That's great, Jacqueline. Now sign my book before I leave._ Jackie, as me and my friends called her if 'Melanie's mom' or 'Miss. Green' was overused gestured for someone to come over. A man approached, pulled out a microphone and said,

"We're going to let our author take a quick break," the man announced. "Please stand nearby if you would still like your book signed." Several people groaned, but some stayed in line, while some others seemed to understand the situation. Jacqueline walked over to the corner, dragging Melanie, and gestured for us to come forward as well. Once in the corner, where nobody was buying anything, Melanie's mom asked,

"What are you doing here away from the Institute?"

"Perseus and the headmasters didn't inform you of the quest?" I asked.

"What quest?" She inquired. I told her everything, from the point where we were called to the Headmasters' dormitory up to when Rosa and I had the dream about Aphrodite.

"You saw her nude?" Jacqueline said, chuckling. My cheeks felt hot.

"Well, still, what are you doing here?" Melanie's mom asked after an embarrassing silence.

"We had to buy a notebook so Andrea could make money, but─"

"What?"

"Long story," I told her. "Andrea has the power to make things appear different to mortal eyes, and Andrea's been making fake money for us the entire trip, and that's how we've been getting our money. We don't have anywhere to go tonight, though."

"You may sleep in my hotel room," Jacqueline offered.

"Thanks," Ellie sighed. "But how are eleven people going to fit?"

"We'll work it out," said Jacqueline. Olivia informed us,

"But there's one problem." We groaned.

"Ten demigods, especially children of the Olympians, attract lots of monsters. We'd be putting Melanie's mom in danger."

"You are brave fighters," Jacqueline told us. "I know you would kill any monsters within a mile from you." I smiled. I couldn't help but admire Jacqueline's courage.

"Come on," Jacqueline said. "I've got to finish signing books."

She headed back towards the little table where a cardboard cutout of her stood, with huge piles of books on the desk and people in a line stood. She signed many books, while Melanie stood by her side patiently, and the rest of us just sort of stood around the table. Ellie, Dmitri and I sat on the ground near the table, reading her books, considering there was nothing else much to do. They were pretty good, I had to admit. If I weren't on a quest right now, trying to avoid monsters and find out why there's a huge threat in south Colorado, I might've stayed and read. And that's saying a lot, because I'm not much of a reader. I flipped open the book and found the first chapter:

**CHAPTER ONE:**

I was born in the hidden country, Illumina, three minutes ahead my twin brother, Pollux was born. Before I even met Elektra or Nico, or Thantos or Sarena, I always knew I was different. I mean, sure I was living in a magical country my entire life, which would make you think that your parents would tell you instantly that you're a warlock. But they hid the secret from us until we were ten years old. Before I began my training as a warlock, I would have to wait two years. Most witches and warlocks finish their training by the time their fifteen or sixteen, but if you are related, to a fairy, perhaps, you might progress in training very quickly. If you have some troll blood, or Cyclops blood within, you might not learn as fast as others.

"Castor," my younger sister, Selene called to me. I quickly turned where I found my sister─

Someone cut off my reading. It was Benjamin.

"It's time to go," he told me. I stood up, brushed the dust off my jeans, and put the book back on the shelf. Ellie and Dmitri followed the same process, and began following me to where the rest of our friends were. I wasn't sure how long I was reading, but stars were starting to appear outside, and it was getting a little dark.

"So," I said, once we got back together with the group. "What's the plan?" Melanie stepped forward.

"My mom said she'll take us to her hotel."

"Wait," said Brianna. "How are we all going to fit in one car?" I could see Melanie was trying to bite back a curse. Melanie's mother came along after her daughter called to her.

"Yes, sweetie..?" Melanie explained the fact that eleven people couldn't fit into one car. Jacqueline patted Melanie's back.

"Already got that covered," she told us. "I've got the limo coming." My friends and I exchanged pleasant glances with each other and grinned.

We stood outside for several minutes waiting for the limo until it finally came. We quickly piled in, and Melanie's mom told the driver where to go. It took at least two hours to drive to the hotel, which I wasn't exactly fond of. Everyone was pretty quiet on the car ride. Some people went to sleep, while others stared out the window curiously. At one point, everyone was asleep, except me and Melanie's mom. It was sort of awkward until I noticed her typing in her laptop.

"Hey," I said. She looked up and smiled.

"Hello." She replied.

"What are you doing?" I asked nicely.

"Well," she said, "those books I were signing at that book store today─those was the last book in my series. I'm planning out a new one based on you guys." My eyebrows lifted.

"What?" I demanded.

"I figure a story about demigods in the 21st century would be good to write about. So, I'm doing some studying on Greek mythology. As you know, some of the characters in my other books either came from Greek mythology or had Greek names. So, I'm warning Melanie to be prepared for lots of questions to be asked when she returns."

"I'm sure everyone at the Institute will be buzzing with questions anyways," I told her. She sighed.

"I know, but I know I can't just stop my career now." There was a silence, when finally Jacqueline spoke.

"They plan on making my book series into a movie, and in fact, Rosa's father is thinking of auditioning for it."

I tried imagining a movie starring Rosa's dad, based off a book written by Melanie's mom.

"Did Melanie tell you who her godly father was?" Jacqueline nodded, but she seemed sort of sad from the memory of Apollo. I have a feeling that one of the reasons that made Apollo fall in love with Jacqueline was because of the fact she was an author, interested in writing.

"What do you have so far planned out?" I asked her. Jacqueline closed her laptop and handed it over to me. I opened it.

Judging from the computer screen, she was using the names of us demigods. She was using the name Ethan, Rosa, Andrea, et cetera. Clearly she learned what our godly parents were, because it showed a list of us demigods. All she had listed was our names written in bold, and then 'A daughter of Zeus' for instance.

"Is it going to be written in 1st Person, 3rd Person…?" I wondered. Jacqueline gestured for me to give her computer back, and even though I wasn't done looking, I gave it back to her.

"I don't know, Ethan." She saved the document, and shut down her laptop. "Being a writer doesn't mean you just write down words, edit it to make it look pretty, and send it to a publisher."

"I know that," I told her.

"I'm sure you do," she continued. "But a lot of planning has to be done. You have to wonder if it's going to be a full series; if there will be a sequel and books after that sequel. A smart idea is to make a list of all the characters you want to appear in the books and save them in a separate document. You, of course, have to figure out whether or not you want to write it in 1st Person, 2nd or 3rd; though I don't think a book like this could be written in 2nd person. I'm not very good in writing in 3rd person, so it'll probably be written in 1st."

"Um…thanks for the writing lesson?" I joked, and Jacqueline gently laughed. We talked for a little bit about her book, and how I could help her considering I myself was a demigod, and how I've already encountered monsters on our quests. Ellie and I have always been great friends with Melanie and her mom. I think it might be a little fun trying to help her write a book about demigods.

The limousine halted, and we were finally at the hotel. Melanie's mom and I had to wake everyone up, and luckily it wasn't so difficult. By now it was definitely night time, and all of us were pretty tired. Melanie slept in the same bed with her mom, so some of us could share the one other bed. It ended up with Ellie, Olivia, Andrea and Rosa sleeping on the bed, while Andrea, Benjamin, Dmitri, Brianna, Hunter and I slept on the floor. It was sort of difficult to fall asleep, like I expected it would, but finally I woke up feeling refreshed, and I knew I fell fast asleep eventually.

My eyes hurt slightly looking out the window, as my pupils dilated too quickly from the powerful sunlight streaming through. Only several people were awake, which included Melanie and Jacqueline, as well as Ellie, Rosa and Dmitri.

We left a note on the inside of the door notifying the sleeping people that, if they woke up, we would be at breakfast. Jacqueline said she'd pay for the meal, but Andrea insisted we use our own money. Jacqueline ended up winning the right to pay the money for the meal, which made me feel guilty, so most of us thanked her a lot. We got takeout orders for the still sleeping people, so they wouldn't be hungry when we took our leave.

As we were leaving the hotel, Jacqueline kissed her daughter's forehead and waved goodbye to the rest of us. I was sure she would soon break into tears as she couldn't see her daughter anymore, thinking Melanie might die on this quest. So far, none of us had died. Well, Andrea died, but we saved her using the Warping Watch. If another one of us died, we'd most likely do the same thing we had before back at the fight with the Nemean Lion and the Chimera.

Just as we were on the border between Texas and New México, I could sense that _serious_ danger was approaching. It was a feeling I've never felt before. You know that feeling, where you've done something wrong and you know you're going to get in trouble with your parents or the police or something like that…? It felt similar to that, only worse.

As I remembered the strange orb which would transport us back to the Institute of Demigods, Aphrodite's words rang in my ears. _When you think it is time, you can transport yourself back to the Institute of Demigods._

Luckily, it only took a few hours to get to the border of New México. We were already near the border of Texas, so that's why it didn't take very long. It was around 3:00 in the afternoon, and we weren't very sure where to go.

I looked at the list of progression, which we hadn't looked at in a while. It indicated that we had to get at least to the border which separates Colorado and New México. Our quest was coming to an end, which was good. It ruled out the bigger chances of getting eaten for lunch by monsters.

We slept in a forest that night, considering we couldn't find an Inn to get into. We set up camp, started a fire, and ate some stuff Dmitri whipped up. We were going to bed when I heard rustling in the bushes. I wondered if it was going to be me in the future, if we had to use the Warping Watch again.

Well, it definitely couldn't be me, considering I wasn't ugly enough to stop someone's breathing.

I screamed as the snake-like creature emerged from the bushes. Everyone looked in my direction. I knew it was Medusa as soon as she starting to approach. Luckily it was nighttime, so we couldn't see Medusa and be turned to stone.

"Melanie," Rosa called calmly, as if Medusa weren't there. "Brighten things up."

"Are you insane? She'll turn us to─AH!" Medusa hissed, cackled, and slapped Brianna with her snake-like tail.

"Just do it!" Rosa said. Everyone looked away from Medusa. Melanie did her brightening-up-the-world thing, and I could feel heat on my back and light brightening up the forest.

"It's fine to look," Rosa told us. I slowly turned around. Medusa's hair of snakes stopped hissing and writhing, and became flat and straight. They started to become a golden color, and eventually turned into lush, golden hair. The wrinkles on her dirty and disgusting face began to smoothen, and her slit-pupil eyes became normal. Pretty soon, we were looking at the regular looking Medusa before Poseidon─Hunter and Brianna's dad─raped her in the temple of Olivia's mom, Athena.

"What…how…?" Medusa demanded.

"I've made you beautiful again, Medusa. You should thank me." I could see Rosa was trying to sweet talk Medusa like she had with Echo. Medusa didn't realize that Ellie was standing behind her, dagger at the ready.

"Oh, thank you!" Medusa was about to hug Rosa, when Ellie stabbed her to death. That was the shortest, yet somehow most terrifying battle I've ever experienced.

"Let's go to bed," I told my friends. "I know it's a bit early, but I think waking up early would be best. We don't need any more monsters attacking us.

My friends seemed to agree with this plan rather quickly. Our quest would soon be over, I reminded myself. And soon, we would find out what the threat in Colorado is.

**A/N: Too short? Too long? Tell me! I understand if you tell me it was rushed, or if the battle with Medusa was too short. I brought in Melanie's mom! XD. Oh, and please tell me if one of the characters is becoming a Mary-Sue, because I feel like they are so I'm trying to make mistakes happen… XD.**

**~ ANSWER THESE CHAPTER ELEVEN QUESTIONS! ~**

**Did you think the battle with Medusa was rushed? Like, a lot?**

**Did you like that I sneaked in the writing tips from Jacqueline?**

**What do you think is happening in south Colorado?**


	12. Chapter Twelve

**A/N: YAY! THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE LONGEST STORY I HAVE EVER WRITTEN. YAY! :D. Well, anyways, this is Chapter Twelve, a very…intense, chapter. I hope you like it!**

MY DAY WAS GOING GREAT until I was transported to the Grand Canyon.

I mean, of course we were on our soon-finishing quest, and we were afraid of this threat in south Colorado, but we were actually talking and laughing, as we had for most of the quest.

The strange part was the fact that I didn't know how or why we were transported to the Grand Canyon. We just sort of appeared there. Then again, after finding out about the existence of Greek mythology, nothing much further was explainable.

We were breaking down camp when I noticed Ellie sitting on a rock. I walked over to her and said hello.

"Hey," she replied. I noticed that this was how the past couple of days had been going, with me finding someone to talk to.

"What are you doing?" I asked her. She didn't reply for a while.

"Sitting, I guess." I smiled.

"Hey guys," someone called. It was Hunter.

"We gotta get going," he told us. Ellie and I sat up, brushed the dirt off our pants, and began walking. As we were walking, still in the forest, an image suddenly faded into existence before us.

"Whoa," I exclaimed. The image rippled, and revealed two faces: my half-brothers, Perseus and Skylar Garcia.

"Hey!" Skylar said through the image.

"We just wanted to check up on you guys. Where are you?" Perseus inquired.

"We're in New México, but─"

"Fantastic! You'll be in south Colorado by tonight!"

"How are you guys contacting us?" Rosa demanded. "I mean, what's up with the…floating image, thing?"

"It's called Hermessaging," Perseus informed us. I looked at Andrea, since her father was Hermes.

"You mean…my father created this form of messaging?"

"He created most types of messaging," Skylar said matter-of-factly. "Instant Messaging, Texting, Facebook Chat─"

"I get it," I told him. Skylar laughed.

"So…is that the only reason you contacted us?" Olivia asked Perseus.

"Pretty much," said Skylar. "We just wanted to ask you where you were, and take a record if anyone had died or not."

"So um…how do we get rid of it, then?" Hunter questioned.

"Just swipe your hand through the image," Perseus told us, and he didn't seem mad, which was good. I had hoped that Hunter didn't offend him when pretty much asking if we could leave in Perseus' technical presence.

Hunter swiped his hand through the image of Perseus and Skylar, and it evaporated instantly into the air.

I don't remember much after that. We were looking at the list of progression: by tonight, we had to be north of our current standing spot. In other words, we had to get to north New México. We continued walking, when suddenly, I couldn't feel the ground beneath my feet. The forest became a blur, which eventually faded into the color grey. It was like my nine friends and I were standing in a circular room painted the color grey. I was beginning to feel dizzy, and my vision became disoriented. Eventually, I drifted into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I was laying down on an uncomfortable, orange colored rock. I sat up abruptly, pulling out my sword. I knew instantly I was at the Grand Canyon, judging from the pictures I've seen of it. Everyone else was beginning to wake up too.

"Where are we…?" Brianna demanded. "Why are we…here?"

"I don't know," Olivia told her distastefully. She _hated_ not knowing things.

I don't know why, but while I was here, I felt more and more questions bubbling in my head, and I couldn't seem to find an answer to any of them. It was so weird. It was as if the very presence of this place made me bubble with questions.

Suddenly, I heard a female voice cackle. I spun around, sword at the ready.

"Who's there?" I shouted. The woman's voice laughed more.

"Show yourself!" Rosa requested, though it was clear she expected to be obeyed.

I looked around. Suddenly, I knew what was making the noise, and my hands went numb. I looked down at the Grand Canyon below. Bones and skeletons of people lay down there, and I felt like I would soon be joining them.

I looked around frantically. I saw a cave on the mountain. A dark figure exited it and approached us.

At first, it looked like a tiny lion. Then, I noticed the wings, and the woman's face.

"It's the Sphinx!" gasped Ellie. "Run!"

We began to run, but the Sphinx was fast. It leaped from the cave it was living in, jumped over us, and landed on the edge of the cliff. All of us screamed.

"No need to fret, young demigods." The sphinx slowly approached us. "I just need to ask you a simple question." Olivia stepped forward.

"It's alright, guys. I've got this." The Sphinx grinned.

"Then, do you, Olivia Johnson, accept the ten-riddle challenge of the Sphinx?" I wondered how she knew Olivia's name, but then again, she was a monster. Olivia's face beaded with sweat. She turned to look at us, and then back at the Sphinx.

"B-But when did it become ten riddles? I mean─"

"You'll most likely know them, daughter of Athena. You just hope you don't end up like one of my friends down there." She nodded towards the edge of the cliff of the Grand Canyon. Melanie gave Olivia an encouraging nod.

"I-I do," Olivia told the Sphinx.

"Very well," the Sphinx replied. "The riddles will get harder and harder, I warn you." Somehow, the Sphinx seemed sort of nice if she wasn't going to bite our jugular if we got the answer wrong.

"Just ask," Olivia inquired.

"Riddle Number One," the Sphinx announced. "Why…did the chicken cross the road?" I laughed. Was this seriously one of the riddles the Sphinx was asking nowadays?

"Easy," Olivia said, "to get to the other side."

"Very good," the Sphinx said, grinning. I wondered how much harder her riddles would get. The riddles and answers continued, and like the Sphinx said, the riddles got harder. At one point, she asked Olivia the riddle 'What is as big as you are and yet does not weigh anything?' She almost had Olivia there, but she guessed the word 'Your Shadow', and got the answer correct. The ninth riddle was the same one she asks in Greek mythology, about the man with four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening. Finally, she answered nine questions.

"Are you ready for your last riddle, Olivia Johnson?" Olivia slowly nodded. The Sphinx stepped forward, and in a sing-song tune, said:

"_I turn polar bears white  
and I will make you cry.  
I make guys have to pee  
and girls comb their hair.  
I make celebrities look stupid  
and normal people look like celebrities.  
I turn pancakes brown  
and make your champagne bubble.  
If you squeeze me, I'll pop.  
If you look at me, you'll pop.  
Can you guess the riddle?"_

I felt like a goner. I couldn't understand the riddle. How can something paint polar bears white, or make boys have to pee and girls comb their hair? I sighed. Hopefully Olivia knew the answer.

"Um…" Olivia began.

"Ponies…?" Brianna guessed randomly, and probably jokingly. The Sphinx turned to her.

"It is not your turn, daughter of Poseidon. But I suppose I could kill you now."

The Sphinx lunged at Brianna.

"NO!" Hunter shouted. I ran towards Brianna in a desperate attempt to separate the lioness from Hunter's little sister.

"Wait!" Olivia shouted. "I didn't answer!" The Sphinx eyed Olivia and slowly got off of Brianna.

"Very well," the Sphinx said. "If you can answer it correctly, I will let your little friend live. Otherwise, she dies." Brianna whimpered.

"If anything," Olivia countered, "you should kill me. I am the one who asked if I could answer the riddle." The Sphinx glanced at Olivia once more.

"I'm going to guess…pressure." The Sphinx eyed Olivia uncomfortably.

"Is that the right answer?" Olivia asked.

"Tell me why you think it is that," the Sphinx told her.

"Well…polar bears are white because the pressure at the poles is low, so they have to be able to absorb heat. And…pressure makes you cry if it's too much. Pressure in your bladder makes you have to pee," Olivia would've continued, but all of us laughed. She looked at us like, _Shut up_, and continued on with her answer.

"Um…maybe peer pressure makes girls comb their hair…? And…Celebrities usually crack under pressure, while many normal people shine underneath pressure. Pancakes turn brown thanks to pressure generated by heat. And…what was the thing after that?"

"It was _'I turn your pancakes brown, and make your champagne bubble'_. You're lucky I'm nice enough to repeat it for you." The Sphinx clearly didn't look happy about it.

"Right, and so um…champagne will bubble until the pressure of the carbonation has disappeared. If you squeeze something under pressure, and then it explodes…and if you are…well, as you said, 'looking' at pressure, you're in it, like an in airplane, and your ears pop." All of us looked at the Sphinx hopefully.

"Well…?" I asked. "Is that the right answer?" She turned to Olivia and grinned.

"Wrong." The Sphinx lunged. I gasped and screamed. She pounced onto Olivia, and had her fangs ready at her neck. Suddenly, I noticed that Olivia's Warping Watch had fallen off Olivia's wrist. I remembered what Olivia had told me one night, back at the hotel with Melanie's mother. She was teaching me about the Warping Watch.

_Three taps stop time,_ Olivia had said. I quickly ran towards the Warping Watch and picked it up. I took the vial of tasteless liquid off the band of the watch. I uncapped it, and splashed it around everywhere, including on Olivia and the Sphinx. I didn't know how I was doing this in enough time to save Olivia. The Sphinx fixed her eyes on me as if I were the tastiest meal ever. I quickly tapped the Watch three times. As the Sphinx lunged at me, she froze in mid-air.

Everything around me became frozen─the clouds in the sky, the wind, my friends, and of course, like I said, the Sphinx. I prayed to all the gods I could think of─Athena, my father, the twin archers, the Fates.

_What is the answer to the riddle?_ I asked them. A voice immediately responded in my head: and I knew it was the voice of my father.

_Look at the riddle carefully, Ethan,_ my father said. He slowly repeated the lines in my head. On the last line, I understood what he meant.

The last line was: _Can you guess the riddle?_ Could I? Of course not…

And that's what the answer was.

I stepped out of the Sphinx's path, to make sure that when I set time back to normal, I wasn't torn to shreds.

I tapped the Warping Watch three times.

The clouds in the sky began to move. My friends began to move, and were in mid-sentence, shouting "ETHAN!"

The Sphinx unfroze in mid-air, and slid across the ground. She looked around, and finally found me standing on the other side of the Grand Canyon.

"No!" I said.

"Yes," the Sphinx responded.

"No─I mean, the answer is no!" The Sphinx stopped during her approach.

"What?" She asked bitterly.

"The answer is no. The keyword in the riddle, the last sentence is the question, _Can you guess the riddle?_ Olivia wasn't able to guess the riddle. The answer is no, because nobody can answer the riddle!" The Sphinx stared at me wide-eyed.

"T-That is…correct. NO!" I grinned. All of my friends stared at me as if I were a god. I was a thirteen year old boy who often made mistakes. How could they think of me as that? All I did was solve the riddle of the Sphinx.

The Sphinx looked over the edge of the Grand Canyon. She screamed and hurled herself off the cliff.

I walked over to Olivia and held out the Warping Watch.

"I believe this is yours." I told her. She laughed.

"You keep it," she requested. "It's never meant anything to me."

"You know more about it," I reasoned. "You were the one who saved Andrea with it." Olivia smiled, and stood up. She took the watch from my hands and hugged me. Normally, Rosa would've flipped out for me hugging another girl, but this was one of my best friends, and Rosa knew Olivia wasn't the kind of girl I would date.

"Well," I said. "We've got the Sphinx covered."

"Yeah," Hunter agreed. "C'mon, let's go."

"Um, how…?" Ben questioned.

"Oh…right."

"Well, how did we even get here?" Andrea demanded.

"I don't know," Ellie told her.

Suddenly, the sky turned a dark shade of grey. Strong winds blew. I felt like I would fall off the side of the Grand Canyon with the Sphinx. I felt like a tornado was engulfing me. I couldn't feel the ground on my meet. I could see the blurs of the faces of my friends. Over the raging winds, I shouted,

"I think we're leaving!" My voice sounded weird with my cheeks moving back and forth.

"But why were we sent to the Grand Canyon anyway?" Ellie questioned. Her voice sounded weird too.

I felt the ground beneath my feet. The raging winds stopped, and we were standing in a different location from when we were talking to Skylar and Perseus. We were standing on a sidewalk in another location.

"Where are we…?" Dmitri inquired. I looked around. I saw a sign and gasped.

"What is it?" Rosa demanded.

"I think," I said. "We're in south Colorado."

**A/N: Cliffhanger! MWAHAHAHA. Would you like to know my reason behind it? I haven't been getting many reviews lately…so I've decided to not update until I get at least three reviews. I don't care if log off and sign a review anonymously. Just. Review. Plus, I have questions at the end of every chapter. In other words, everyone should review if you wanna know what happens next.**

**~ ANSWER THESE CHAPTER TWELVE QUESTIONS ~**

**Did you know the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx before it was revealed?**

**What do you think is happening in south Colorado?**

**If you were Olivia, would you want a Warping-Watch?**


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**A/N:** **See how much reviews do for you? I updated in less than a day because I got reviews. Please note that this is not the last chapter. There are at least two more chapters to come, and maybe three, if I do an aftermath sort of thing. So, here's chapter thirteen!**

IT WASN'T LONG AFTER MY friends and I transported to south Colorado we discovered our problem; Perseus didn't tell us where in south Colorado we had to go.

I looked at the list of progression. I had never been to Colorado before. This was when the quest was getting much scarier than it had before. Sure we had faced monsters, Andrea had died, and we were almost eaten by a Sphinx. But we managed to live, so I figured we'd live longer, right?

"Does it say anything?" asked Olivia.

"Not exactly." I told her.

There was a silence.

We went into the woods, so we weren't a bunch of teens on a sidewalk in a city we've never been in before.

Suddenly, Rosa gasped.

"What is it?" I demanded.

"Hermessaging─we could contact Perseus and ask him where to go!"

"We don't know how to Hermessage," I reminded her.

"Andrea. You're father's Hermes…don't you know how?" Andrea shook her head.

"Well…how can we contact anyone?" Dmitri asked.

"Well…I have an idea." I told them.

"What's the idea?" Hunter inquired. I reached into my backpack and pulled out the orb Aphrodite gave me.

_When you think it is time, you can use this to transport yourself back to the Institute of Demigods,_ Aphrodite had said.

"But…My mom said we were suppose to use that during the battle," Rosa persuaded.

"She said when I think it is time."

"But, how will we get back here?" Ellie questioned. I ignored her. I was about to throw it up in the air when I stopped. The wind blew. A pink colored light formed in front of me. It was the goddess of beauty.

"Aphrodite," I said. "What are you doing here?"

"I have come to warn you. You will only be able to use your orb once."

"I know," I told her. "But we have no way to get back to the Institute of Demigods, and we have to ask Perseus where in south Colorado we have to go, right, guys?" I turned around. The girls comfortably looked at Aphrodite, while my guy friends seemed to be drooling. That probably made their girlfriends unhappy.

The goddess of love sighed. "I could go. Or you could just Hermessage─"

"We don't know how," I reminded her. Then I realized it probably wasn't a smart idea to interrupt a goddess. "Sorry. Go on."

"It is simple. Let me show you how."

Aphrodite found an empty space in the forest.

"Messenger of the gods," Aphrodite chanted, "the patron of the Olympians, send from us to Perseus at the Institute of Demigods, a message!" The air in front of me began to ripple. An image formed, but it was at a part of the Institute I didn't recognize. Maybe he wasn't at the Institute.

"A-Aphrodite. Kids, you figured out how to Hermessage. What is it that you need?"

"What part of south Colorado do we have to go to?" I asked him. "You never told us." Perseus smacked his hand to his face in a manner of, _I forgot!_ He waved his hands, and suddenly his background changed. He was at the Institute of Demigods, in the Headmaster Dormitory.

He walked over to one of the walls, and pulled down a map. He studied the south Colorado section very carefully. Meanwhile, Aphrodite was putting the orb back in my backpack and attempting to check her makeup at the same time.

"It appears…the threat is coming from…Montezuma, Colorado!"

"Where are we now?" I asked the beauty goddess. She looked up for a second, looked around in the sky as if searching for Olympus, and looked down at us.

"San Miguel, Colorado…" she said distantly. Rosa and her mother seemed to get very sad for a moment, from the memory of someone they both love dearly.

"You'll both see him again," I told them. "Rosa, you'll survive this quest. Aphrodite, you'll meet up again."

"He understood my duty," Aphrodite explained. "Either way, I must go."

Aphrodite disappeared in a flash of pink light. Like it had the last time, she left behind the smell of perfume, chocolates and roses, which actually smelt sweet. I figured those ingredients would make a horrible smelling combination.

"Goodbye, Perseus," I said. He waved goodbye, and I swiped my hand through the image. In seconds, Perseus' picture disappeared.

"Well," said Ben. "I guess we better start moving."

We had to be at least in the town of Dolores by the time it was getting dark. Dolores was the town just above Montezuma.

Rosa and I were the only ones left awake that night. Everyone else had fallen asleep. I sat down next to Rosa. The log she was sitting on was sort of uncomfortable, but I lived with it. The fire we made burned out, so there were embers floating in the air and the smell of fire was everywhere I turned.

"Hi," she said to me. I replied with the same words.

"Are you happy the quest is almost over…?" She asked randomly.

"I guess so. Are you happy you've met your mom?" She sighed.

"Yeah," she said finally. "For years I wanted to know who my mom was. It seems like just yesterday I was crying in your shoulder for being titled by Aphrodite." I chuckled at the memory.

"So…" I said after a silence. "What do you think is going on in south Colorado?"

"I'm not sure, Ethan. It could be anything─evil gods rising, monsters forming. I would just hate it if it was nothing important and we came all this way for nothing."

"Me too," I told her. After a while, she said,

"Ethan. What if we die? What if Olivia can't use her Warping Watch and we can't save them? Hades barely seemed happy about releasing Andrea. But then again, it was for Ben." I wrapped my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder.

"Remember what Perseus told us before the quest: Death is inevitable, so don't fear it. Death can be fought and accepted. We're just going to have to fight incredibly hard if this force is more powerful than we think." Rosa sniffed, despite the fact she wasn't crying.

"Let's go to sleep," she said. "We have a big day tomorrow." I nodded. I began to sit up, but she grabbed my shoulder.

"Ethan," she called. I turned.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Can you sleep over here tonight?" She inquired. I smiled.

"Do you want me to?" I questioned.

"Yes," she sort of begged.

"Okay," I told her. She lay on the ground. I sat down next to her, put a protective arm around her, and lay on the ground beside her. She turned around and pecked me on the lips. I grinned and pecked her back. Somewhere, off in the distance, or maybe up on Mount Olympus, I could imagine Aphrodite, squealing with joy.

I woke up to Ellie's screaming.

Rosa and I sat up abruptly.

"What is it?" I said groggily.

"Ethan," Ellie looked pissed. "If you had sex with my best friend, I swear I─" I chuckled.

"We didn't do anything last night, Ellie. I was just sleeping over here." Ellie put the dagger she already had out slowly back into her pocket.

"Okay…but I swear, if you guys ever do _it,_ I will cut off your─" I interrupted her.

"Yeah, okay." Everyone else began laughing and woke up.

"Shut up," I told them. They all rolled their eyes, which looked kind of weird.

"Anyway," I said. "We've gotta get going. How much further is Montezuma?" I asked. Everyone raised their shoulders as if to say, _I don't know._

"I have an idea," said Andrea.

"What is it?" I asked. Suddenly, Andrea closed her eyes. Then, they opened.

"Everyone, grab your stuff," she continued. "We're gonna be doing some running."

When she said running, I had no idea she meant at fifty miles an hour.

"Are you sure this'll work?" I questioned. Andrea glared at me for asking her the same question so many times.

"Positive," she said. "Everyone got everything?" I nodded, and so did everybody else.

"Okay," said Andrea. "Run!" We all followed Andrea as she ran. It felt weird. I felt like I was running at a normal speed, but blurs of shapes and colors zoomed past me. It slowly got faster and faster. It continued for about five seconds, and then we stopped.

I felt incredibly dizzy. Then, I realized where I was.

My friends and I were standing in the middle of a busy road. We jumped out of the way as quickly as possible and onto the nearest sidewalk. I would feel silly to die like this. It would be a pretty stupid way to die after having battled all those monsters.

"Is everyone okay?" Andrea demanded.

I nodded reassuringly. I looked around. I saw a sign nearby that read:

**WELCOME TO MONTEZUMA**

POPULATION: 42

I had never seen a town with such a small population. I knew it had to be the population since the U.S. 2000 census, but still.

"Well," I said. "Where in Montezuma do we go?"

I looked at the list of progression. At the very end of the list, it said: ONCE YOU FIND THE TOWN, GO TO THE FIRST FOREST YOU FIND.

"I guess we have to go to another forest," I told my friends.

And so we did. I didn't exactly know how to get into the forest because of the gate that blocked it, but eventually we found our way in. As soon as I got into the forest, I knew that danger was coming.

I looked around. "Where is this 'threat'?"

I suppose I shouldn't have said that.

"Right here, if we're who you're talking about," a raspy voice in front of me said. It was the Sphinx…how had it reformed so quickly? Then, I looked around at all the different monsters here: the Chimera, the Nemean Lion, and Echo. I was expecting Medusa to come out at any second and turn us to stone. I immediately grabbed my sword. My friends grabbed their own weapons.

"You won't kill us as long as we have the Divine Locket," Echo told us.

"The…_what_ locket?" I asked.

"Should I have said that, or no?" Echo asked.

"It is fine," rasped the Sphinx. "They'll never get a hold of it anyway."

"What is the Divine Locket?"

"It is a powerful locket which fuels our immortality. For years we have searched for it, and now, it is ours."

"You won't get away with that!" I told them.

"The common line in films," the Sphinx explained. "'You'll never get away with this!'" the Sphinx imitated.

"It's true," I complained. The Sphinx rolled her eyes. She looked at the Chimera.

"Summon all of our children," she said. The Chimera roared. All of a sudden, a bunch of creatures stepped forth. One resembled the Sphinx incredibly well. Another resembled Echo. The monsters had children!

"These are our mortal children," Echo explained. "These are the ones you could actually kill."

"How could you have children with mortals?" I demanded. "How did they not see you for the beasts you really are?" Echo reached into her jeans' pocket. She produced a strange looking eyeball.

"The Spectral Eye," Olivia murmured.

"You know much, daughter of Athena," said the Sphinx. "I can't believe that silly son of Zeus was able to guess the correct answer."

"Hey!" I exclaimed. The Sphinx grinned at me.

"Attack, children." the Sphinx snarled.

The battle was longer than expected. Their children were actually relatively hard to beat. More monsters showed up. Eventually, a daughter of Medusa appeared. She wasn't as harmful as Medusa, but could still turn us to stone. She was difficult to battle, but eventually we decapitated her. I picked up her head, and turned all the other monster children to stone.

"We still have the Divine Locket," Echo told me, "and the spectral eye."

I charged Echo. I stabbed her instantly. She fell to the ground, blood caked all over her back. Another monster─an _empousa_, which is basically a fire-haired, robot type thing with one leg of bronze and another of a donkey leg, a servant of Hecate, stepped forward. She produced a necklace with a large looking diamond. She chanted the words: _Zíste mia athánati zoí._

Somehow, I was able to understand the words she was saying. It was Greek, and it translated to: _Live an immortal life._

Suddenly, the blood flowed back into Echo, and she stood up instantly. I groaned.

"You are lucky we're saving our energy for later, when we get to the Institute, _and_ to Olympus."

"Isn't Olympus in Greece?" I asked.

"Stupid son of Zeus," a Cyclops insulted. I glared at him.

"Olympus moves just as the gods do. Every time the gods fall into their stupid slumber, and awaken, they are in a different country, different continent, possibly. And now, they are in your United States." I was never told this information. I wondered if the monsters were lying or not.

"Either way," said the Sphinx. "We have the Divine Locket and the Spectral Eye. We will continue or immortal lives, have…hmm…demimonster children, so to speak, and destroy the Olympians! Nobody gives us monsters credit!"

"You don't need to destroy Olympus," Rosa told them.

"Yes we do, you slutty Aphrodite girl." I was ready to punch them. I remembered my dream with Aphrodite, and how Rosa asked why most people are called sluts or perverts if they have Aphrodite in their heritage. All of a sudden, Aphrodite appeared. She towered over the Sphinx.

"_Excuse me?" _She hissed. Another demimonster daughter of Medusa charged at her. I turned away. I'm sure it must've looked funny to see the world's most beautiful woman fighting the world's ugliest creature. As soon as Aphrodite told me it was okay to look, I did. Aphrodite disappeared, but someone else took her place. It was a middle-aged man, with sky blue eyes, a long beard, and blackish grey hair. He summoned lightning, which vaporized the monsters instantly. He turned to face me.

"Ethan. Elizabeth." Ellie and I looked at each other.

"Dad…?" We guessed. The king of the gods smiled. I ran up to him and hugged him. Ellie did the same.

"I have sent the monsters to Tartarus, but I'm sorry to say that they still have the Divine Locket. They'll most likely escape. A meeting is to soon be held on Olympus. I have invited all of your mortal parents. I would take more time to explain, but you guys must be getting back to the Institute."

"It's okay," I told him. "And don't worry─those monsters aren't tearing down Olympus." My father smiled, looked up into the sky, and disappeared in a flash of light. I instantly threw my backpack on the ground, and pulled out the orb Aphrodite gave me. Quickly, I threw it up in the air. My vision dimmed.

When my vision came back into focus, I was at the Institute of Demigods again. I was standing with my friends at the indoor dining room, so it had to be raining outside. Everyone gasped at our appearance.

"Hi," I said. "We're back."

**A/N: Oooh! Now you know why the story is called 'Ethan St. Cloud & the Divine Locket'! Yay! This might be my first story on FanFiction of decent length that's actually complete! For all we know, this FanFiction could be days from finishing!**

**~ ANSWER THESE CHAPTER THIRTEEN QUESTIONS! ~**

**What do you think will happen now that they are back at the Institute?**

**Do you think that the meeting on Olympus will summon Ethan and his friends?**

**What else do you think the monsters might do with the Divine Locket?**

**Did you ever think of the title and wonder what the Divine Locket was? If so, what did you think of it as?**


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**A/N: THE LAST CHAPTER OF THE ETHAN ST. CLOUD CHRONICLES, BOOK ONE, THE DIVINE LOCKET! THIS IS SO INTENSE. I actually finished this earlier, but I went over my girlfriend, Taylor's house****excuse me, I mean, I went to **_**Rosa's**_** mansion, and saw her step-mother and her father, Miguel VanCleaven! XD. I hope you enjoy the final chapter of the first book of the Ethan St. Cloud Chronicles!**

THAT NIGHT, EVERYONE WAS BUZZING with questions, and everyone wanted to hear the story of our quest. People seemed most fascinated by the story where Andrea was killed and we went back in time.

However, people were even more interested in the plan the monsters were up to. Perseus told us that he had never heard of the Spectral Eye. The monsters hadn't told us much about that magical object, but I assumed it hided things from what they really were.

We were given food, and it tasted so good after over a week of having to eat Dmitri's food. His food is good, it's just I wanted the food back here at the Institute. Eventually, Perseus and the other headmasters said it was getting late and that we had to go to bed.

It felt so nice to finally be back in a real bed back in the Zeus Dormitory. I passed out instantly considering I was uncomfortable sleeping in lots of different woods, hotels, et cetera. I was beginning to feel like I was at home once again.

When I woke up, I stretched pleasurably. Ellie and I were the only ones awake. I looked at the clock. It was 7:08am. I felt like this was a late time getting up, considering most of our quest, we were up at 6:00am in the morning.

I was about to take a shower when I noticed Skylar wasn't sleeping in his bed. I also noticed a note on the door. It was from Perseus.

Ethan and Ellie,

Please Report To The Headmaster Dormitory When You Are Fully Awake.

~ Perseus.

It was sort of hard to read his fancy handwriting, but I understood it eventually.

"Ellie," I called. She quickly turned to me. Luckily I hadn't spoken so loudly that I woke up the other members of the Zeus Dormitory.

"What is it?" she asked. I showed her the note. She nodded.

I dressed and showered quickly. I took a few minutes longer than Ellie, but when we were done, we did as we were told by Perseus and went to the Headmaster Dormitory. There, Skylar and Perseus were already waiting for us. Perseus greeted,

"Good morning Ethan and Elizabeth. Did you have a nice sleep?" Ellie and I nodded and grinned. She liked the fact that she got to sleep on a regular bed as well.

"Well, we have some exciting news for you. First off, Skylar, as you know, is the counselor for the Headmaster Dormitory."

"Yeah…?" I said. Skylar stepped forward.

"I've decided to give you guys the responsibility of the Zeus Dormitory. You've really earned it." I was stunned.

"Wait…what?" Skylar repeated himself.

"W-Well, thank you." I told him. He smiled. He hugged Ellie and fist-pounded me. I guess it wouldn't be awkward if he hugged me, considering he's my half-brother, but who cares.

"What do we do as head-counselors?" I inquired.

"Well, to start with, you pick all of the activities, you get to pick lights out whenever you want, and you attend counselor meetings."

"Counselor meetings…?" Ellie asked.

"You'll learn more about them later. Anyway, it's basically when all the counselors get together and talk about whatever big thing is going on. For instance, if there is a war…" His voice became distant.

"I get it," Ellie said.

"What was the other news?" I asked. "You said 'we have exciting news for you. First off…'?"

"Ah, yes," said Perseus. "As you know, Zeus talked to you briefly yesterday. He mentioned traveling to Olympus for a meeting with your mortal parents. You and your friends shall travel to Olympus today."

I nodded as I remembered yesterday's meet with my father.

"That trip is today. So, I've contacted all your other friends, and your mortal parents. They should be coming to the Institute rather soon. You don't have to worry about how they are arriving here. I shall handle that."

"Okay," Ellie and I said in unison.

"You three may return to your dorm now," Perseus told us.

As the day went passed, it seemed all I could think about was traveling to Olympus. I wondered what it would look like. I wondered if it would still look all Greco-Roman like, or if it would fit into the 21st Century just as the gods do. I didn't even nowhere Olympus was. Was it over the Institute of Demigods, or somewhere else, I questioned myself mentally.

Eventually, Perseus spoke into the intercom of the Institute. "The following students please report to the Headmaster Dormitory: Ethan St. Cloud, Elizabeth St. Cloud, Hunter Rivera, Rosa VanCleaven, Benjamin Rich, Andrea Martin, Dmitri Gardner, Olivia Johnson, Melanie Green and Brianna Rivera. Thank you." He hung up the intercom. I instantly headed towards the Headmaster Dormitory. Apparently, everyone else had gotten the same going to Olympus speech as Ellie and I did. Apparently, some of my friends even became counselors of their dormitory, such as Rosa and Hunter. I hugged Rosa and high-fived Hunter.

I opened the door that led to the Headmaster Dormitory. A tall woman stood in the doorway, with dark hair and green eyes. She held a fork with a tiny piece of chicken on it. She shoved it in my face and chanted,

"Eat this!" Benjamin stepped forward and pulled the woman out of the way.

"Mom, stop scaring Ethan." Benjamin said. So this was her mother, Valeria Rich. He clearly wasn't kidding when he said his mom was crazy. Then again, I never thought he was lying.

When I passed Benjamin's crazy mother, I noticed that the counselors of the other dormitories were already there. Even my enemies, Trevor Young, Jack Robinson and Heather Thompson were there. Even the Hunters of Artemis, including Clare Redstone were standing near some boys, though they didn't look happy about it. Our parents were already waiting in the Dormitory for us, and we immediately ran up to them and hugged them. Our parents seemed overjoyed that we didn't die on our quest. My mother was almost crying as Ellie and I hugged her.

"Alright, settle down," said Orpheus. "We are heading over to Olympus. Perseus, if you please…" Perseus took out one of the devices we use to get to the Institute of Demigods, except this one looked different. It wasn't even shaped like an oval. It was shaped like a Greek omega.

When he opened the door, I gasped. Granted, I should've been use to this with the whole Institute thing. But instead of it being the door that leads to the exit of the Headmaster Dormitory, a giant, colossal cloud sat in front of me, but it wasn't just that. Mount Olympus sat on the cloud. Long, cobblestone paths led everywhere. There were colorful plants and trees, with pomegranates and oranges. Tents were laid out everywhere. Hybrid creatures I'd never heard or seen before slept on the side of the roads. The Muses were having a concert. Nymphs were at tiny, open-air markets selling things. A garden that was sacred to Demeter and Persephone bloomed beautifully.

It was an Ancient Greek city that _wasn't_ in ruins. That's part of the reason it was so beautiful. All of the other Greek cities were practically destroyed. The only Greek thing that wasn't really destroyed was the Parthenon replica in Tennessee.

Everything was so festive, though I felt like it shouldn't be considering monsters had the Divine Locket. If only mortals could see past the Spectral Eye and _not_ have demimonster children, at least.

Perseus and the headmasters led us on one of the cobblestone paths, but I still looked around everywhere. Good-looking teenagers and adults milled around, so I figured they were minor gods and goddesses. Assorted Greek temples were sprawled out everywhere, and everybody seemed to have their own temple. One was a beautiful temple with mirrors inside, and roses grew around it perfectly. Over the arched entrance, it read: **Ναός****της****Αφροδίτης****. It **translated to: _Temple of Aphrodite._

Eventually, we came to the biggest looking palace, which was at the peak of the mountain. It glittered white, gold and even silver. Rose bushes bloomed around it, with beautiful, green colored leaves. We walked through a giant, bronze door, which opened to reveal a giant throne room.

Okay, so technically, it wasn't a _room_. This made my house look like a speck of dust that might be found floating through the air. The place looked incredibly clean. Twelve thrones sat around a giant hearth fire, where tinier chairs were.

The thrones resembled those of the dormitories back at the Institute of Demigods. The only difference was that the Artemis throne was where the Artemis dormitory should be if she had children attending the Institute of Demigods. Otherwise, they all looked the same as the dorms. For instance, the throne of Zeus looked like an actual Greek throne, just as the Zeus dormitory looked like an actual Greek building.

The Twelve Olympians, who towered over us at over _fifty_ feet, sat in their thrones and gazed at us as we walked. We got the message that we had to sit at the tiny, wooden chairs near the hearth fire, where the fire goddess, Hestia, was poking coals with a stick.

"I see this meeting can be started," my father said. I noticed that the boys sat on the left side of the throne room and the girls sat on the right, excluding Dionysus who took Hestia's throne when he was made an Olympian. The Hunters of Artemis walked over to Artemis' throne and stood at her feet.

My father looked so different now than he had yesterday. Yesterday, he looked like a normal dad, at a normal size and wearing normal clothes. Here, Zeus had a Greek robe on, just as the other Olympians did. Otherwise, he looked pretty much the same, only taller and stronger.

I looked at the lightning bolt that sat on one of the arm rests of his throne. It crackled with electricity and made the air smell of ozone.

"As you know," my father said, "the monsters have acquired the Divine Locket." After a pause, as if to make sure none of the Olympians were interrupting him, Olivia's mom, Athena, said,

"They think it is the wisest choice to destroy Olympus and tear us down, when their very breath is a gift from us. I do not see why they choose to go forth with their silly plan."

"Our first problem," Zeus continued, "is to find our allies and our enemies. So far, we have no enemies at the Institute of Demigods, am I correct, Perseus?" My half-brother nodded at our father. It felt weird that the Headmaster of the Institute of Demigods was my half-brother.

"We obviously know that the monsters are on our bad side," Demeter said.

"I am positive some demigods will leave to join Ouranos' army," Ares added.

"Ouranos' army…?" I asked. The Olympians turned to face me. It was kind of scary.

"Yes, son," my father said. "We fear that Ouranos is beginning to rise. Years before your generation, the titan lord, Kronos, arose. Our side defeated him, but we suspected Ouranos, or Gaea would rise next. So far, our only possibility is Ouranos."

"Oh," I said, gulping at the thought of an impending war.

"I'm afraid this meeting will have to continue without the presence of the demigods and mortals." Zeus said. He looked at Hera, who was grinning, considering she hated all demigods except for her two daughters. She waved goodbye at Jessica and Juliet. I looked carefully at her right arm─I could see the scar from where she cut herself in order to create the twins.

Zeus and Hera waved their hands, and everything, at least through my vision went black.

Slowly I began to see again.

I was a little bit discouraged that we had such a short meeting on Olympus. But I guess I shouldn't complain much. Anyway, I didn't want to hear about some war that was possibly approaching.

Months passed.

On the fourth of July, they had an entire fireworks presentation. I was surprised when all the names of the demigods who died appeared, as well as the names of the demigods who went on quests burst into the sky. Andrea was on both lists. I laughed.

In August, the occupants of the Institute of Demigods slowly faded. I wished that my birthday was on one of the months I stayed here. Perseus told me that the Institute of Demigods wasn't just opened for the summer, but for all year. Normally, people would just avoid school and train here the entire year, but I didn't want to become dumb. I wanted to go through school all the way, despite not liking learning very much. Besides, all my friends decided to go back to school and just go to the Institute during summer time. Olivia was most reluctant to return.

On the last day of the Institute of Demigods, I waited on the front, green-grass lawn for my friends. I already had everything in my suitcase packed and ready to go. All my friends came to the Zeus Dormitory for our departure.

We were planning on having our own individual party to celebrate our survival on our quest, and my mother allowed it. Now that we had training, it wasn't a problem for me to fight monsters. The fact that we were all friends and liked to hang out, well, that attracted lots of monsters due to our scent being so strong in one location.

As soon as the last person arrived, Benjamin, who was often late, I pulled out the device Perseus gave me. I gently pushed it against the door for the counselor bedroom. It began to light up. As soon as the glowing died down, I opened the door to reveal my house. I could smell the cookies my mother was baking, and I could see a cake out on the kitchen table. We set our suitcases down in the living room. We decided to resume the sleepover that night, since at our last one, we discovered we weren't exactly, well, human.

I kissed Rosa fully on the lips before heading for the kitchen. It felt nice to finally be home again, surrounded by my demigod friends.

When we were eating that night, my mother asked,

"How was your summer overall?" All of my friends looked around and at each-other, and I knew we were all thinking the same thing.

"It was the best summer," I said. "I've ever had."

**~ THE END ~**

**A/N: FINALLY! I HAVE FINISHED A STORY! I HAVE ALWAYS FAILED TO FINISH BUT NOW…BUT NOW, I HAVE FINISHED! MWAHAHAHA. Please excuse my excitement. I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I did writing it for you. I remember how it first started out; could you believe Benjamin was going to be named Liam? Could you believe that there wasn't going to be any Andrea? Or Ellie? I know, it's so surprising. Well, anyway…**

**~ ANSWER THESE CHAPTER FOURTEEN QUESTIONS ~**

**Did you enjoy the story?**

**Did you think it would be longer? Shorter?**

**Which Character Was Your Favorite?**

**Did you like the storyline?**

**Do you like the idea of a sequel? Why or why not?**

I really hoped you enjoyed reading the story of the Ethan St. Cloud Chronicles. It means so much to me that you guys have reviewed and kept this story alive. It is my longest story on FanFiction, and for making me actually completing it! I feel so special! I've enjoyed everything from writing the story to creating characters to thinking of the storyline. I really hope you enjoyed Ethan St. Cloud & the Divine Locket, Book One of the Ethan St. Cloud Chronicles. Why? Because…

**Coming February 2011**

The Ethan St. Cloud Chronicles, Book Two

THE VOYAGE OF THE SUNSET ECLIPSE

To my dedicated readers: I am giving out prizes. Our first place winner will receive a preview of Ethan St. Cloud & the Voyage of the Sunset Eclipse, before it comes out this February, and I'll give them a shout-out on my story! Our second place winner will have me read their stories, and review them! If they don't have stories, I'll author alert them. And finally, our third place winner, I will favorite author. How I choose my winners? The amount of reviews they give me, of course!

**Our first place winner is…XXxxTaylorxxXX!**

**Congratulations Taylor! I mean, **_**Rosa.**_** XD.**

**Our second place winner is…Jayce Signmorou!**

**She won with ten reviews!**

**Our third place winner is…I'mAnIdiotButWhoCares!**

**Congratulations, Sam! You're one of my besties on FanFictions, and now you've won one of my contests! Congrats!**

Keep on the lookout for my story coming out in February. If you don't wanna miss it, Author Alert me so you will be notified when it comes out! Thank you for reading my story!

**ETHAN ST. CLOUD & THE VOYAGE OF THE SUNSET ECLIPSE**

**2 / 1 / 11**

**~ PJATOSROCKS09 ~**


	15. Preview of: Voyage of the Sunset Eclipse

**A Preview Of:**

**Ethan St. Cloud & the Voyage of the Sunset Eclipse:**

**CHAPTER ONE**

**P**erseus contacted my friends and I the week before the Institute of Demigods was suppose to open.

According to him, he found three new demigods─a girl and two boys. Supposedly, they were children of minor gods, because their scent wasn't as powerful as ours.

He did his research, and using a demigod tracker─a device used to, well, track demigods, obviously─he discovered that they were supposed to be rollerblading at the local skating center. He gave me and my friends the demigod tracker so we could find them easier. School for us had ended several days before.

Perseus postponed the opening of the Institute due to the fact that monsters are having demimonster children using the Spectral Eye, which we discovered last summer. We also figured out on the quest we had a year ago that the monsters on Ouranos' army acquired the Divine Locket, which gives the wielder immortality.

You're probably confused by all my words of the Institute of Demigods, Spectral Eye, Divine Locket, demigod tracker, et cetera. So, I'll make this quick; the legendary beings of Greek mythology, like the monsters, heroes, and gods have always existed and still do. You'll discover more about it as you read through this book. Last summer, I discovered this information for the first time, when I was thirteen. Now, I'm fourteen, and I have to save three demigods from most likely being attacked by monsters.

I chuckled as I remembered last year's quest─I had discovered my father was an Olympian god, attended a school with my half-brothers and sisters, as well as the other children of the gods, and was sent on a quest. My friend had died, I went back in time to save her, I made a monster jump off a cliff, discovered a threat in south Colorado and traveled to Olympus in less than a week.

I picked up my other demigod friends before my girlfriend, Rosa VanCleaven, sweet-talked a bus driver into driving us to the local rollerblading place. She's a demigod daughter of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. She has powers that relates to persuasion, love and beauty.

The bus driver dropped us off at the rollerblading place and we paid money for our admission inside

"Okay," said my friend, Benjamin, a son of Hades. "I guess we're going to be rollerblading for a little bit."

It was kind of difficult to use the demigod tracker to find the three demigods in this place, because of that fact that everyone was skating around. Most of the time, we were sitting at one of the tables where you can sit and order food, or where most parents sat and read a newspaper or something.

"How exactly are we going to persuade them to leave this place once we find them?" Olivia asked.

She's a daughter of Athena. Her black hair and grey eyes make her look a lot like her mother. At least, that's what Athena looked like from the few minutes I had seen her. Dmitri Gardner, a son of Demeter and Olivia's boyfriend, sat next to her, holding her hand under the table, probably.

"I don't know," my twin sister Ellie told her. She has the same physical features as me─black hair, sky blue eyes, and a Mediterranean skin tone. The whole 'sky blue eyes' thing probably gives away who our father is. But just in case you didn't get it, me and Ellie's father is Zeus, the king of the gods, and god of the sky.

"Let's just focus on getting the demigods out first," Rosa said as she sat down next to me. Her brown hair was tied into a ponytail, which she didn't do a lot. Her eyes were changing color as they always did. I looked into her eyes and looked at all the different colors they changed, counting how many different times it changed─blue, brown, green, hazel, grey─they changed at least five times.

Andrea Martin, another one of my demigod friends, walked over to the table from across the room in a matter of seconds. She had a pizza in her hands.

Her father is the Greek god, Hermes, and from him she gets a lot of her features. The elfish ears, the mischievous smile that told you she shouldn't be trusted with sharp objects and money. She had freckles across her nose and under her eyes, with dirty blonde hair. Because of the fact Hermes is her father, she can run incredibly fast, and is often the messenger of the group if two people are in a fight.

"Pizza's here," said Andrea. We quickly opened the box and began to eat. I looked over the half-wall that divides the eating room and the skating area. I saw one of my female enemies from school. She's my ex-girlfriend, and her name is Gwendolyn Shapiro.

"_Ew,"_ I said distastefully as I sat back down.

"What is it?" inquired my friend Brianna Rivera. She's the younger sister of my best friend Hunter, and she is the daughter of Poseidon. She's one year younger than me, and is thirteen years old.

"I just saw Gwen," I told them.

"Shapiro?" Rosa asked in a disgusting tone. I nodded.

Rosa and Gwendolyn used to be great friends. They were still friends while Gwen and I were dating, but when I began to like Rosa and we started dating, Gwen became…different. Rosa and I were still friends with her for a bit, but then she called Rosa a slutty whore, and we instantly hated her. Rosa went to the Guidance Counselor on her, and now they're not even allowed within ten feet of each other.

"If anything," Rosa said, "I hope _she's_ not the female demigod we're looking for."

"If she were the female demigod, I'd say she's the daughter of the worst minor god ever." Rosa smiled and rested her head on my shoulder.

My friend, Melanie Green, a daughter of Apollo, picked up the demigod tracker and skated out of her seat.

"I'm gonna try finding these demigods," she said. She skated out of the eating area, her black hair flowing behind her.

"I think we should go with her," Hunter, Brianna's older brother, suggested. All of us looked at each other.

"Okay," I agreed.

We all sat up, and rollerblading out of the dining area.


End file.
